To spring
by BadGateway
Summary: Sequel to I got you and Periodic functions. Harry is a PhD student who suffers from Multiple sclerosis. He visits Ron to continue their collaborative research. Much has fallen apart and the winter has been long. Will Draco and Harry find their way back to each other?
1. Chapter 1

This is part three of the series. Go to _I got you_ for the first part.

* * *

Harry grabbed the bars to his left and right tighter as the plate under his feet started to move.

"Look up at me, Harry."

Harry pried his eyes away from the ground, fixing them at his physiotherapist. Sara smiled at him encouragingly, her blond ponytail bouncing. He loosened his grip slightly, putting more weight on his shaking legs, trying to balance on the quivering ground. After a few seconds, when he did not manage to let go of the bars altogether, Sara turned off the machine and Harry sank back on the bench behind him, panting and scowling.

"Very good," Sara pressed some buttons on the remote control for the plate.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, mopping sweat from his forehead. "That was total crap, I did not even manage to let go for one second."

Sara grinned sheepishly. "Oh yes, I should have mentioned that I increased the difficulty a bit."

Harry looked up. "You did… what?"

"I wanted to see how far we can go. I just turned the frequency down again. Ready for another go?"

Harry stared at the therapist, not knowing if he should feel angry. "You are nuts."

"I know." Sara took one of the colored plastic balls from the shelf. "Now come on, move your ass!"

Harry sighed at the sight of the ball. "Oh no, we are not doing this, please!"

"Oh yes, definitely the ball. Just one perfect catch, okay?"

Harry grunted irritably and pulled himself up again by the bars.

"Ready?"

The plate started to quiver, slower and less than before and he stood straight, letting go of the bars, hands hovering just a little above them.

Sara nodded and playfully threw the ball in the air one time before throwing it to him. Harry caught the red ball, at once lost balance because of the quick movement and let it fall to the ground, clutching the bars to his sides to prevent falling, too.

He despised this exercise. Sara's well-trained stance, the way she held her arms, even if it was only for a slow, easy to catch throw, reminded him of his own encounter with ball sports he had had during his time at high school. Harry still remembered the thrill of catching a ball out of midair, spinning and firing it towards the goal, the cheers of the crowds when he scored. Annoyingly his body did not seem to remember.

Sara picked up the ball from the ground and calmly waited until Harry had taken his position again before throwing it another time. This time Harry managed to fling the ball back at her somehow before grabbing the bars.

"Okay, that's it, exercise finished," Harry pleaded.

"Nah, that was crap. Take a break, we'll try again."

Six trials later Harry managed to catch the ball and throw it back without losing most of his balance and was allowed to leave the plate finally.

"Not too bad," Sara tried to cheer him up as she helped Harry step off the machine and sit on the massage table. His legs still felt shaky.

"Not good either," Harry said darkly. "Massages?"

Sara nodded and watched as Harry scooted back before pulling his legs up. "You've been improving on all exercises for weeks, except on this one. You are not trying seriously enough."

Harry scowled as he pulled down his pants, trying to untangle his feet. "I _am_ trying. It's just… not working."

"I saw that. It's important to work your core muscles and improve your balance. I don't have to tell you that." Sara moved to the other side of the table and started applying massage lotion on Harry's left leg.

"Hm…" Harry clenched his teeth as Sara's fingers started working his thigh muscle.

"Any unusual problems with muscle spasms lately?"

Harry shook his head and blinked away a tear as Sara moved from his thigh to less hurtful regions around his knee.

"Sorry, cutie, I know it hurts."

Harry nodded and took a deep breath, staring at the too well known ceiling, comparing the patterns of the panels to distract himself.

.

.

.

„Sir, the crutches need to go through the X-ray," the security officer yelled from his place next to the walk-through metal detector.

Harry nodded, knowing the procedure too well. The band-conveyor was already full and passengers were filing through the metal detector one by one in haste. It had been exceptionally crowded inside the airport since Harry had arrived to drop off his baggage. He assumed this was due to the strikes that had lasted weeks and had been only broken the day before yesterday. Now all the travelers that had missed their flights seemed on their way in addition to the regular ones.

The hustle had possibly been the reason for the delay in the arrival of a transport wheelchair, too. That had finally forced him into taking his crutches to get to the gate to avoid missing his flight. As he was quite familiar with the airport, he vaguely knew that his gate was one of the nearest to the security check-up. Combined with a general well-being of lately he had not found this decision a hard one to make. Booking a transport wheelchair had been a mere precaution he had taken out of habit.

A female security officer approached him from the right.

"Sir, is it possible for you to walk unsupported through the metal detector?"

Harry scanned the arc through which he had to walk. A woman just passing through flinched when the all too well-known alarm sound rang and she was waved to wait at the side.

"Sir? I'm sorry, this is airport policy. We can also do a manual check-up, if it suits you better."

Harry looked back into the eyes of the security officer that pierced him and shook his head. He wanted to avoid getting padded all over his body if he could. He did not know if this was stretching his luck too far but he was willing to give it a try. The security officer would not need to know that he had not walked unsupported for years outside physical therapy or his home, where he could hold on to walls and furniture.

Harry approached the walk-through metal detector on crutches, accompanied by the security officer. He stopped at the yellow line and disentangled his arms from the underarm crutches. "Would you mind?"

"I will make sure these go through the X-ray as fast as possible, Sir." With that the officer retreated.

Harry wished for a second she could have stayed, he felt rather helpless without his crutches, rooted to the spot.

"Next!" The brawny security officer at the other side of the metal detector bellowed, waiving his manual metal detection device at Harry.

Harry took a deep breath and sent a mental plea to his legs to not let him down. He judged the distance to the man on the other side. It could be not more than three steps. He took the first step moving his right leg forward quickly because his left did not take his weight for very long. He swayed slightly. His left foot joined his right, a lot slower. No dragging, that was good so far.

Another two steps to go. The officer was frowning now and Harry could feel a dozen pairs of eyes on his back. One step right, balance, left foot. His left leg started to tingle and Harry tried to ignore it. The last step was steadied by the officer on the other side of the metal detector.

"Thank you, sir," Harry muttered, clutching the arm of the officer for balance.

"Good job, boy," the man growled, patting his hand with a gigantic one. "Your crutches will take some time. Take a seat." With that he pushed a short stool towards Harry who let himself sink on it with a barely suppressed sigh.

A grin spread on Harry's face as the feeling of victory sank in. It had been a long time since he had last walked through a metal detector. He thanked the officer heartily when the man brought his crutched and went off towards the gate.

Harry arrived at the gate in time for boarding. He watched the first class passengers being called for boarding walk through the sliding door behind the airline desk - and down a flight of stairs. He groaned inwardly. Of course he had made sure there would be a jet bridge before he had agreed to go by foot but he had not imagined there to be steps even in that case. He approached the desk.

"Only first class passengers," the woman sitting behind the wooden table greeted him, her perfectly painted red mouth curving into a neat smile.

"Uh yeah... I'm here to ask if there is another way to board. A way without steps, actually?"

The woman raised an eyebrow. "You can't get down the stairs, sir?"

Harry resisted rolling his eyes and lifted his left crutch a little. "Yes, exactly. Look, I had booked a transport wheelchair but-"

"We could send him down to the wheelchair entrance. I'll tell the guys down there to let him through," the colleague of the woman, an overly eager young man supervising the boarding at the machines that scanned the boarding passes interrupted him, already his walky-talky out.

The woman seemed irritated about the interference of her colleague but after some scowling at the oblivious man she shrugged and turned her attention to Harry again. "Alright, I'll schedule you for priority boarding. You need to walk in this direction up to gate Z5. You'll find a lift there. Take it down one level and walk the same distance back in the opposite direction."

Harry thanked her, starting to feel like some bulky piece of luggage and followed down the direction he had been told, hoping gate Z5 was not too far away. He had thought for a second about challenging the stairs but it seemed he should not stretch his luck more than he already had.

He made it to the plane apparently before regular boarding and slowly shuffled through the deserted aisle in the economy part of the plane toward his seat. He had to walk slightly sideward for his feet and crutches to fit and frequently banged into one of the seats. The plane already started to fill up when he had just made himself comfortable in his window seat, squeezing his carry-on luggage in the small space between the seat and the plane's outer wall. A middle-aged man with a grey suit heaved his perfectly sized trunk in the compartment above their heads before taking the seat next to Harry, nodding in greeting.

The time went by surprisingly quick. They got served the usual meals and drinks on board and Harry watched a movie on the small screen at the back of the seat in front of him. He refrained from drinking much and succeeded in only having to get up once to go to the restroom.

His seat neighbor willingly stood up to let him out and seemed vaguely surprised when Harry produced his forearm crutches from under the seat and leaned over to place them close to the aisle. Harry folded up the armrest to his neighbor's seat and scooted over. Apologetic he looked up at the man waiting next to him. The other averted his eyes and mumbled something about taking all the time he needed. Standing up in the small space between the seats being much more challenging than sitting down it took Harry some time to arrange his legs and the crutches and heave himself up, one hand at the backrest of the seat in front of him, one grabbing the handle of his forearm crutch, the tip already placed outside the rows of seats. His flight neighbor helpfully offered him the second crutch that had been leaning against the seat and Harry took it, thanking him.

The flight had been smooth so far and as Harry made his way to the restrooms he prayed for it to stay that way, already the humming and vibrating floor playing tricks on his sense of balance. Still, he managed to get to the back of the plane where he skipped the small line to the restrooms and made it back safely upon releasing his bladder. He plopped down easily on the seat next to the aisle and transferred to his own seat by the same procedure that had gotten him out of the row. He reached over for his crutches and stored them under the seats once more. The apparent business man returned to his seat again.

The rest of the flight was uneventful and Harry tried to calm the excited flutter in his stomach that stemmed from finally going to Princeton but a lot more from the feeling of getting closer to Draco. He had not spoken to the blond since their last Skype call had ended with Harry cutting it short. There had been no word from Draco, no call or text, afterwards and Harry had been relieved at first until he realized that deep within him he had hoped for Draco to fight. That he had not done that, that Draco had given up on him so readily, hurt even more. But he told himself that he was over it, that both were better off this way and that he did not think of Draco anymore. At least not as frequently.

Upon landing in New York with only a slight delay in schedule Harry waited as usual until the plane had emptied before getting up. Shortly after exiting he was greeted by a flight attendant holding on to the wheelchair he had booked and, being tired after all, allowed being pushed down the gangway and towards immigration. There was a huge crowd even before they reached the hall they had been bound to and some people were audibly complaining, afraid they would miss their connecting flight. Apparently there was a long queue already at immigration but after some confusion and shouting the situation was relaxed by allowing those with connecting flights to go through. Harry's attendant merely pushed him after the small flock of now mollified passengers. Immigration went surprisingly smooth due to the fact that Harry had only recently entered the US and earlier than he had anticipated he received his trunk and transferred to his own wheelchair with barely suppressed relief. Minutes later he found himself in the queue that had formed in front of the exit, the attendant with his trunk at his side.

Harry spotted Ron's red hair among the people waiting outside for the newly arrived passengers at once. He waved and Ron smiled as he caught sight of him. Ron fought his way through the oncoming crowd and bent down to hug Harry, people voicing their irritation as they encountered the sudden obstacle and retreating with embarrassed expressions on their faces and mumbled apologies when they noticed the wheelchair.

"Good to see you man!" Ron sat back on his heels, his grin contagious and carefree as always and Harry managed to smile through the oncoming fatigue.

"Good to see _you_." Harry quickly squeezed Ron's hands that had slipped from his shoulders.

"Do you need any further assistance?"

Both of them startled, looking up at the attendant that met them with a bored look and pushed Harry's trunk towards Ron.

"No, thanks a lot." Harry smiled politely and the attendant nodded, turned and vanished faster than her high heels should allow.

Ron grabbed the trunk and they left the hall side by side.

"I borrowed my Dad's car," Ron told Harry. "It's big enough to get all your stuff inside."

Harry nodded in appreciation, hoping the car was not parked far away.

Ron beamed at him sideway. "So, are you ready to visit Princeton?"


	2. Chapter 2

The campus under a thin layer of snow turned out to be as beautiful and mysterious as everyone had promised Harry. He loved the dark stone buildings and the silent bare trees, adored finding new trails and hidden courtyards every day. To his chagrin however, he came not to appreciate all of it. Although most buildings were accessible, if only through a backdoor, a great portion of walkways were not. Most were narrow and uneven and frequently interrupted by stairs.

It took Harry one week to figure out the shortest acceptable way to the department building where he worked. In the end it boiled down to two options, one longer but suitable for wheelchair days and one shorter but with a few steps if he was on foot. Which came to be a regularity, since he felt better than he had in months. His joints seemed less stiff, his balance had improved a great deal thanks to Sara's unrelenting determination and his newly adjusted medication worked wonders in the pain department. Only his vision failed him from time to time if he was overworked and tired, a frequent reminder to take it easy.

A few weeks later the weather continued to be cold but dry and with most of his scheduled work done, Harry decided to spend the weekend in New York. He had visited Philadelphia and Boston with Ron and a few of his friends. Most graduate students owned cars because although the campus and the town were small and everything close by, except for a small theater and a few coffee shops there was basically nothing interesting to find in Princeton itself. Even to go to a bigger shopping mall meant driving to the next town.

This time however, Harry went alone. Ron would spend the weekend with his girlfriend Hermione, whom Harry had not met yet because she worked long shifts as a doctor in training in a town close to Princeton. So Harry had booked a room in one of the cheaper but still horrendously expensive hotels in New York, packed his backpack with the few things he needed and on Friday afternoon boarded the rusty train that would bring him to the Big Apple. Everything went well until the train slowed to a stop at a station and the voice of the conductor crackled through the speakers.

"Due to police investigations on the route ahead of us this train terminates here."

Cries of outrage were audible around Harry. People jumped up, snatched their bags and jackets and left the train, pressing their phones against their ears or searching for alternative connections. The train had been quite full, many people were drawn to New York on weekends. Harry waited for most of the commotion to subside before shouldering his backpack, grabbing his crutches and getting on his feet. He did not take a look around until he had left the train. With a sinking feeling he realized that this was a non-accessible station and probably there was no train back in the direction he came from as well. All he had wanted to do was have a nice weekend in New York, explore the city on his own and now he was stranded somewhere shortly after Princeton and with still way to go until New York.

Before he arrived at the driver's cabin to ask where this train was going now the doors closed and it moved out of the station, probably headed to a holding track anyway.

Harry ground his teeth in frustration. He knew there were two possibilities. Either accepting that he was stuck at the station until the trains were running again or trying the escalator. Stairs were no alternative; there were at least three flights of them. The escalator was scaring at best, dangerous at worst but if he stayed at the station that could mean hours of waiting before he was going anywhere. Harry decided to take a look at the escalator. At the time he arrived at the top of it the crowd had already thinned.

For some minutes Harry watched people step onto the moving steps. How did they manage to make it look so easy, he wondered. Dimly he recorded that he had not bothered about such tasks only a few years ago. He fought with himself but as the stream of people got thinner he reached a decision.

"Excuse me?" The young woman who had just been passing him stopped and took a step to the side, looking at him curiously. She had bushy brown hair and a heavy looking bag around her shoulder. He had called out to her because she had looked the least distressed of all the people.

"Uh… could you help me here, please?"

The woman's eyes fell to his crutches and understanding dawned on her face. "Right, of course. What do you want me to do? Shall I get someone to carry you?"

"Oh, n-no, no, that's not necessary," Harry stuttered, blushing slightly. Carrying him… honestly? That was not even an option he had thought of. Because it was not an option at all. "If you could just carry one of these?" He indicated towards the crutches with his head.

The woman nodded. "Of course. Are you sure about that?"

"Yes." Harry frowned. What did she know about it? But as he looked down the moving stairway – they moved in fact pretty fast and why did the steps have to be so unbelievably high? – he did not feel so sure anymore.

"Okay…" Harry had stopped right at the edge of the escalator. He turned slightly and scanned the station. No more crowds arriving as far as he could see. He did not want to be bumped in on the escalator or, even worse, get his crutch kicked out from under him. He shivered at the thought. 'Now don't act a coward,' he scolded himself. 'Nothing is going to happen.'

He untangled his arm from the cuff of his right underarm crutch, and handed it to the woman.

"Shall I go first, maybe?" The woman proposed. "I can catch you if you lose balance."

Harry nodded. Yes, that probably was a good idea even if he himself had never asked for it.

The woman stepped on the escalator with ease, carrying his crutch in one hand. Harry put his right hand on the handrail, feeling it slide through his palm. 'Ok, concentrate.' He fixed his eyes on the metallic steps rushing out from the floor in front of him. At no particular signal he grabbed hold of the handrail with his right hand and quickly moved his right leg forward. To his surprise, it landed perfectly in the middle of one step. He was so astonished that he did not pay attention to his left. His foot caught at the step behind the one he was standing on as the steps moved down and he swayed precariously.

"Hey, wow!" The woman rushed towards him and steadied him with one hand somewhere in the region of his stomach. "Don't tell me this is your first time on an escalator!"

Harry, who had caught his balance again, shifted his weight slightly and turned his hip to free his uncooperative left foot from the step, setting it down next to his right. "No, I've done this hundreds of times before," he answered. Not a lie, specifically.

The woman made an unbelieving sound and let go of him, still eyeing him apprehensively.

"I'm fine!" Harry told her. In fact, he was a little worried now about the other end of the escalator but she did not need to know.

Harry held his breath as the end of the escalator approached and counted down the seconds until he had to step off. As it turned out, stepping off was much easier than stepping on the escalator. That might have been due to the fact that on this side the ground was not moving.

He received the crutch from the woman, who gave him a stern look.

"You shouldn't have done that. It's dangerous!" She seemed really angry.

"Everything is fine," Harry retorted. A smile spread on his face as he turned and looked up the escalator he had just battled.

The woman in front of him actually stamped one foot. "No, it's not. If I had not been there, you would have fallen and probably broken your neck!" she yelled at him.

"Calm down," Harry backed away a little, surprised by the vehemence of the woman. "I didn't fall."

"Because I was there to catch you." The woman narrowed her eyes furiously.

"And for that I am very thankful. May I repay you with a coffee?"

"Certainly not."

"Green tea? It's my favorite, too," Harry grinned mischievously. But the woman only rolled her eyes and turned to leave, her bag swinging, anger still visible in her stride.

As Harry watched her go, something tucked at his memory but he soon forgot about it. He had other worries, like how to get home now.

.

.

Time went by in a rush with Harry burying himself in work. Ron managed to coax him out of the student apartment on some days, but most of the time Harry stayed inside, fingers glued to the keyboard. After the disastrous attempt to get to New York, he could barely motivate himself to go out for anything more than grocery shopping. And that only shortly before he felt like starving.

He regretted even the trip they had taken to Boston. Too much had reminded him of Draco. The park where they had watched the sailing boats on Charles River which was frozen over now, lying calm and silent in the white, crisp winter air. The wharf where in summer the boats departed for whale watching, hostile and deserted in winter, the ticket booths boarded up. Since then he had seen Draco everywhere, had thought to recognize him in random people walking down the street and past the apartment block he dwelled in, had seen his smile in his dreams and how his eyes had sparkled when he laughed. On one of the rare occasions that he actually went outside, he could have sworn he had seen him inside a small bar, but when he entered, the seat at the window where he had thought Draco had sat was empty.

One day Harry had already been about to change into his night clothes when the doorbell rang. He huffed, got into his wheelchair in his shorts, not bothering to put anything else on and wheeled to answer the door. He shook his head, mouth already open to ask Ron who had visited earlier what he had forgotten now when he perceived who was standing in the dimly lit entrance hall of the building. For a second he thought he was still dreaming or someone was playing a very bad trick on him.

"You?!"

Draco's pale face glowed white in the neon light. He was wrapped in a black woolen cloak, his shoulders hunched, hands buried in the pockets. Harry noticed his hair was longer now, the silvery tips reaching past his shoulders. He forced himself to look away and slowly began closing the half open door in the same process.

"Harry…" Draco's voice was hoarse but his steps were firm when he came closer, putting a hand against the door, stopping it. "Can I come in?"

Harry looked into those grey eyes a second too long. When he finally managed to look at his hands in his lap, he could not bring himself to push the door shut as he should have. Instead, he wrapped his hands around the cold metal, reluctantly backing the chair. He felt suddenly self-conscious in front of Draco, his shorts barely concealing his legs. When Draco passed him in the narrow entrance his cloak brushed Harry's bare knees.

Harry followed Draco to the small living room, where the blond stood, looking slightly forlorn and towering over Harry. "Sit." Harry said, barely able to keep the frost out of his voice and gestured towards the small sofa.

Draco sat, still in his cloak, sitting on the edge of the soft cushions.

"How did you know?" Harry had stopped at the threshold, as far away from Draco as possible in the small room.

"That you are here? Does that matter?"

Harry snorted. "What do you want?"

Draco's head flew up.

"You," he breathed and his eyes locked with Harry's.

Harry blinked, a strange feeling growing in his stomach, making it hard for him to breathe for a moment. "What?" He forced his voice to be cold.

Draco stood up from the sofa, making a move in Harry's direction but stopped when the other tightened his grip on the handrims, ready to back up any moment. "I... I don't know what happened all those weeks ago. I would like to know. I can't stop thinking about it... about you. I- I need you. Please... if you feel anything like I do... if you ever felt like that... don't - don't do that. Don't shut me out like that."

Draco stood in the center of the room, hands balled at his side.

Harry sighed. "I'm sorry. I can't do that, Draco."

The blond stumbled forward a few steps. "Then tell me... tell me that you don't want me as well."

"I think you should go now."

"Harry-"

Harry looked at his hands on the rims, trembling.

Draco swallowed and straightened up, his fists opening and closing again. "Tell me... tell me you hate me." His voice sounded oddly detached.

Harry lifted his head, wincing as he met the grey eyes. "I hate you."

The silence rang deafening. Draco's face had drained of color, he was breathing heavily.

"What?"

"I hate you. How often do I have to repeat?" Harry's voice was surprisingly steady, considering his body felt like a spring bent till breaking point. He could feel the shudder starting deep within him, every strain of him longing to be released.

Draco moved forward, shakily, and Harry involuntarily ducked. But Draco surged past him without touching him, his distorted face half turned away. The door slammed shut behind him.

Harry sat in his chair, waiting for the storm, fighting for breath. When it finally arrived, his cheeks were already wet with tears.


	3. Chapter 3

If Harry had been miserable before it was nothing against how he felt the following weeks. He did not leave his bed for days in a row except for getting some trash to eat or go to the restroom. He neither answered the door nor his phone and when Ron came over and threatened to break into the apartment with force should he not give a sign of life Harry just sent a text message, telling him to leave him alone. And Ron did, after pounding on the door for half an hour and bellowing his throat raw. Harry just crept further under the blanket, muffling the sound with a pillow over his head. All he wanted was to sleep.

On a few days he tried to work but his brain got stuck on the simplest things and after only an hour a day he was forced to shut his laptop again, having basically accomplished nothing. He felt bad about that and a small panic settled into his throat whenever he thought about the time he had left to prepare the talk for the conference at the end of his stay and for the paper Ron and he had planned to write.

When he finally emerged at the department one day, he was pale and shaky on his feet and felt nothing like interacting with other human beings. Everyone left him alone, luckily. Even Ron managed to keep his distance - at least until after dinner time, when he stuck his head into Harry's small office.

"I'm taking you to my parents this weekend."

"What?" Harry's head flipped around, away from the code that gave him headaches already. He could not find the bug he feared he had planted somewhere months ago, he assumed.

"I'm taking you-"

"I heard you. I'm not deaf. Nor stupid."

Ron scowled at him. He had proven quite good at ignoring Harry's occasional outbreaks of bad temper. "Yeah, guess what? I know that. Although I'm not so sure about the stupid part."

Harry rolled his eyes and turned back to the screen. He really wanted to be left alone. "Whatever. I prefer staying here during the weekend."

"I thought that," Ron said, leaned against the door frame and folded his arms. "That's why I did not ask if you wanted to come. I said I'd take you."

"What?"

"You know, I'm starting to get concerned about the deaf thing." Ron's lips curled in a smile.

Harry's frown only grew deeper. "You can't force me to. This is still a free country. Most of the time."

"Most of the time?"

"Depending on your definition of freedom," Harry mumbled, angry that he had let himself coax into a conversation.

"Ah, as much as I would love to hear more about that, I'm late for Hermione."

Harry had the decency to at least look up at that.

"Yeah, she got the evening free and we are going to have a lot of time together!" Ron's smile was sickening. It faded as soon as he realized Harry's sour expression. "If you spend another day alone in your apartment eating shit you are going to die of scurvy. I'm picking you up at 5 pm on Friday. Be decent."

With that he vanished, Harry's protest, bellowed at his back, having zero effect.

.

.

Harry was sulking the whole drive through the snow-flecked countryside, his gaze directed out of the window at his side, looking at bare trees flying past and naked fields lying bare and dark in the low light without actually seeing anything. If Ron thought this would change anything, make him feel better or take his mind off of things, he was wrong. Nothing would ever make him feel better, he was sure about that.

When they finally took a turn into an even smaller road strewn with potholes, shortly after they had left a small town, Harry however found his interest picking up.

"We are nearly there," Ron said, slowing down the car he had borrowed from a colleague as he rounded a particular large hole, filled with brown water.

The trees gave way to a small field. In the midst of it stood a house, although Harry was surprised it actually still stood erect. The house was small in base area but tall in height, several floors stacked on top of each other in quite an adventurous way. Styles of architecture seemed to mix, as did the building material, wood, stone and cement thrown together in no apparent order. All of it seemed to be glued together with something bordering on magic.

"This is the Burrow," Ron said, beaming as he looked towards the house. His smiled faded a little and he added, lowly: "It's not much."

Harry chuckled, still in awe. "I think it's brilliant."

The path to the house was muddy but someone had laid out wooden planks and there was even a crooked ramp up one part of the wide steps that lead to the entrance door. Something twisted in Harry's stomach as he wheeled over the planks, following Ron who carried both their bags in his hands. Someone had taken precautions for their arrival.

The door flew open even before they reached it and a sturdy woman stepped out, her smile wide, her red hair long and flying. She dried her hands at the flowery apron around her waist and pulled Ron, who protested feebly, into a crushing embrace.

"Ronny!"

"Mum…"

She hold him at arm's length and gave him a stern once-over, although the warmth in her eyes never left. "I haven't seen you in ages, you know. Your father and I were starting to wonder if you had gone off to another continent forever, too. And look how slim you have become. Don't they feed you at Princeton?"

"Mum… I didn't-"

"Oh, we know you did not, honey. But you could visit more often, it's not that far! We've barely seen you since you moved out."

"No… Yes, I know mum… I'm sorry."

Harry knew that Ron had only recently moved out of his parents' house. He could tell a little, why, now. Ron's mother lifted her head and her eyes fell on Harry, who had paused in front of the ramp and observed the spectacle, unsure what to do.

"And this is Harry, right? Harry, it's so good to finally meet you!" Her wide smile had returned and she came bustling down the steps, nearly knocking Ron over in the process, wrapped her arms around a startled Harry and hugged him to her chest as well.

"Mum…"

"Um…" Harry reciprocated the hug feebly, the smell of flowers, wooden smoke and cooked food encircling him as tight as her arms. "Hello Mrs. Weasley," he mumbled into her chest.

"Oh, dear, call me Molly," Mrs. Weasley laughed and squeezed Harry's arms before she released him. "Are you hungry?"

"Uhm…"

"Oh what a question, I know you young men are always hungry! Ronny can always eat-"

"Mum!"

"So I prepared something healthy for you, to get meat on those bones." With these words she actually pinched in Harry's cheeks and then turned to go inside again. "Ron, bring the luggage inside and show our guest around. Be ready for dinner in a bit. And wash your hands!"

Harry wheeled up the long ramp.

"Sorry for that," Ron whispered above his head.

Harry only laughed. "Oh, Ronny, no problem." That earned him a mortified look from Ron.

When he was honest, he actually liked Mrs. Weasley already. He could not remember when he had last gotten such a hug from a person, if ever. He felt a small pang in his guts, thinking about it as he levered the front wheels of his chair over the small ridge of the entrance door and rolled inside. He had never had a family, never had a mum that could hug him. For a small second he envied Ron for his mother. But the negative feeling was gone as soon as they were inside.

The Burrow surely was an interesting place. The entrance hall was clattered with things, shoes lying around, jackets hanging on the walls next to child paintings and photos with redheaded people of varying age. On the other end a wooden stair wound its way up to the higher floors and as they shed their jackets a girl came rushing down, her sock-clad feet sliding on the wooden floor board.

"I thought I heard a car-"

Her gaze fell on Harry, who had turned his wheelchair around to her, and she gaped at him, face turning red.

"I… I forgot something upstairs," she stuttered, vanishing up the stairs again.

Harry frowned at Ron who shrugged at him. "This is my little sister Ginny. Don't ask me what's up with her, she has always been strange. She's a senior at high-school, I guess the strain is just too much on her."

Ron waved at one of the doors to the left, which was slightly ajar. "This is your room."

Harry pushed open the door fully, revealing a mid-sized room with a fire crackling in the fireplace on one side and a large sofa and armchairs grouped around a low table in the middle.

"It's the living room but there are no other rooms on ground level than this and the kitchen. I hope it's okay." Ron sounded slightly nervous as he placed Harry's bag next to the sofa.

Harry wheeled inside, too. He noticed that someone had pulled the countless rugs to the sides, making a smooth way for Harry's wheelchair. "It's great, Ron, really."

Ron smiled relieved.

They heard footsteps and the door that Harry had closed sprang open again with a bang.

"Ginny told us that you have arrived."

"If you ask me it sounded like Prat Pitt is here."

Harry blinked at the two nearly identical faces, red hair spiky, freckles even more pronounced than with Ron and a huge grin in both of them.

One of the twins stepped forward, extending a hand to Harry. "Hi, I'm Fred."

"I'm George," the other said, following suit.

"Harry Potter."

"I guess our stupid small brother has not warned you about us," the one twin – Fred? – asked, rubbing the head of a protesting Ron.

"Let go of me," Ron grumbled, trying in a vain attempt to flatten his hair again.

"Uhm… well, not exactly," Harry said, grinning a little.

"I did not know you would be here!" Ron exclaimed.

Fred plopped down on the sofa, propping his feet up on the table. "Business has been good, lately."

George pinched Ron's cheek and sat down next to Fred. "Yes, we opened a new store in the surrounding. That's why we are here."

Before Harry could ask what kind of store they were talking about, a middle-aged man with graying red hair entered the room.

"Harry!" He grabbed Harry's hand and shook it for a long time.

"Oh, hello Mister Weasley." Harry assumed that this man was the father of Ron and the other redheads.

"It's Arthur for you," Mister Weasley smiled enthusiastically. "How did you like the ramp?"

"Uh…"

"I constructed it myself. Looked up all the numbers, length and steepness and all. I hope I got it right?!"

Harry nodded. "Yes, thank you. It's perfect."

Mr. Weasley's smile got even wider. "Great!"

"Our father likes constructing things," one of the twins said. Harry had lost track of who it was by then.

"Yes, don't ask him about the motorcycle."

"The motorcycle?" Harry asked.

All three younger redheads sighed exaggerated.

Mister Weasley chuckled. "A friend of mine gave me his motorcycle to repair. It's a Triumph with a sidecar, more than forty years old."

"Wow."

"Harry, If you want, I can show it to you. I could need some help, too."

"Yeah, great idea-"

They were interrupted by Mrs. Weasley sticking her head into the room and calling them to dinner. Harry caught Ron's look as they all moved into the crammed kitchen. A small smile played around Ron's lips. Maybe it had not been such a bad idea to come here, Harry thought, and smiled back.

Lunch was nice, with the twins and Ron chatting non-stop. From their stories, Harry deduced they owned at least three joke article shops strewn over the country, with a big online shop in addition. Mr. Weasley told Harry more about the motorcycle and how he intended to repair and even improve the machine while Mrs. Weasley loaded Harry's plate the second it got near to being empty. Harry ate more than he felt he had his whole lifetime. The only irritation was Ginny, who sat at the table opposite from him and never spoke nor looked up. When he asked her to pass the Ketchup bottle she blushed violently and handed it to him without looking him into the eyes.

Later, Harry prepared for bed in the tiny bathroom that was situated behind the living room. The door was wide enough to let him through with his wheelchair but once he was inside there was not a hand width of space left. Turning the chair was impossible. It sufficed, though. Ron, already in his night clothes, joined him when Harry had made himself comfortable on the sofa.

"Are you all set? Need anything?" he asked from the door.

Harry pulled the soft blanket higher. "I'm good. Thanks, Ron."

"Okay. I'm upstairs. If you need anything, you can call me on my phone."

Harry nodded and smiled reassuringly. "Thanks."

Before Ron could vanish he called at his back. "You should probably mention to your sister that I'm gay."

Ron grinned and rubbed the back of his neck. "Hm, yes. I might have forgotten to mention that detail."

Harry rolled his eyes and threw a pillow at him.

They spent the next day with a chess tournament between Ron and Harry and the twins in the morning and while the twins and Ron went out for fishing in the early afternoon, Harry joined Mr. Weasley in his workshop at the back of the house. It was an interesting room, full of machines and tools hanging on the walls and standing around and the cool air smelled of oil and grease. In the middle of it a gleaming motorcycle was parked and Mr. Weasley was kneeling on the floor in a blue overall, trying to loosen a screw, his hands and face showing black oily spots already. He lifted his head as Harry rolled inside.

"Hi Harry! Mind handing me the oil pan?"

They worked for a few hours side by side. Harry, who had no idea about cars, was eager and quick to learn and enjoyed the time greatly. Later, Mr. Weasley went outside to get something and Harry was alone in the shop when a small voice announced: "Time for dinner."

Harry moved the creeper, which was a wooden board with rolls attached that was normally used to work lying beneath a car, to see who had entered. Ginny stood in the door leading to the house, her cheeks still slightly pink but seemingly less distressed. Ron had apparently talked to her.

"Great, I'm starving," Harry said, cleaned his hands on an already dirty rag and pulled himself up using the large motorcycle. Before he could ask for it, Ginny had wheeled his wheelchair towards him and put the breaks in. He let himself fall into it.

"Thanks." Harry followed Ginny into the house. "Hey, uhm… what are your plans for after high-school?"

Ginny turned to him and smiled nervously. "I think I'd like to be a nurse," she said.

Dinner was even more enjoyable with Ginny talking to Harry and Harry felt the ice break the more they got to know each other.

When he woke the next morning Harry knew at once that it was a bad day. His limbs were stiff and hurting and his vision was blurry and got even worse when he rotated his head. He groaned and buried deeper into the blanket, shielding himself from the world outside. Ron came looking for him and he heard him leave without another word. Later someone came silently on naked feet, placing bread and water on the small table in front of the sofa. When Harry cranked open an eye he thought he could see a glimpse of long red hair on a small person. Ginny had brought him breakfast. It was not until two hours later that he succeeded in forcing himself to eat something.

He slept most of the day, thoughts hazy and disjointed when he was awake. The glass of water refilled itself whenever he had emptied it and he was grateful that whoever did it left him alone otherwise. Later in the evening he woke to a shadow sitting in one of the armchairs, nearly buried under the cushions.

"Ginny," he whispered.

The shadow moved and he could make out her wave of red hair as she tucked it out of her face.

"Hey..." she breathed. "How do you feel?"

Harry rubbed his eyes. "Better, a little."

"Everyone is outside to see the meteor shower."

"Hm..."

"Do you want to join? We have a fire and blankets. You won't get cold."

Harry sighed and draped his forearm over his eyes. "I don't think I am able to see any shooting stars right now, Ginny."

Ginny was silent for some time and Harry thought she had left when he jumped at her voice closer to his ear. "It's not so much about the shooting stars. It's nice, you will see."

Harry heard the faint click of her putting the breaks in on the wheelchair. He groaned, not able to even find enough fight in himself to protest properly.

Ginny peeled back the blanket gently and helped him take his legs off the pile of pillows he had stuffed under his knees because they would not straighten. She draped his arms around her shoulders and he inhaled her fresh scent as she assisted his transfer.

"You'll make a fine nurse," he mumbled and Ginny's short laugh was bright in his ears. She dumped his still warm blanket in his lap.

"Hold on to that."

Harry did not protest against the commanding tone, neither against her pushing the chair outside and across the uneven lawn towards the big orange glow that was the campfire in front of the house. Ginny maneuvered them to two lone sun loungers, opposite of the chatting and laughing group of Ron and his brothers. Harry was very grateful for that. He slipped onto the lounger that was already laid out with a blanket and Ginny spread the blanket they had brought over him.

"Are you all good?"

"Hm... yeah." The lounger held his stiff hip and knees in the perfect position and the fire was warming without making him become hot. He turned his head up to the black sky, not expecting to see anything but still catching his breath when he could sense just how many stars were visible from the faint glowing dots he could still make out.

Ginny moved her lounger close to his and snuggled in next to him, her warm hand settling onto his upper arm. "You can see much more stars here than close to the big cities," she whispered.

Harry laid his hand on top of hers, squeezing the small frame. "Okay. Will you show me the shooting stars?"

"Of course."

Harry lay motionless for an hour or two, listening to Ginny's low voice explaining what was happening above them. Sometimes he dozed off for a few minutes but every time he woke up again, her warm body was still there and she was still talking and he thought that with friends like this, everything was going to be okay.


	4. Chapter 4

One day a few weeks later, Harry found himself crutching back to his apartment late. He had spent most of the afternoon and part of the night with Ron and his friends among several bars around campus. It had been an amiable time, despite the fact that Ron and the others had grown more and more drunk while Harry was stuck to non-alcoholics. When one of Ron's friends, Harry did not even remember his name, had started to get a little more physical than Harry appreciated, nearly knocking him to the floor when he had tried to hug him in drunken clumsiness, Harry realized it was time for him to leave.

The air was cool but smelled of spring and Harry had decided to tackle the distance by foot. He hoped he could get up early the next day and maybe finally solve one of the problems with his code. Spirits high he rounded a corner in an area he did not know very well when he heard _his_ voice and stopped dead.

The street was narrow and barely lit and Harry stumbled backward a few steps, slipping into the shadows, leaning against a rough, cold stone wall.

"You should not have come here, _faggot_ ," growled a deep voice.

"Yeah, Malfoy. That was a bad idea." The second voice squeaked higher.

Harry heard someone laugh humorlessly and it took him a few seconds before he realized it had been Draco. "So what do you plan to do, he? Call the police?"

"I would not be so fucking imprudent, in your case, Malfoy," the deep voice rumbled, a dangerous edge to it.

Harry shivered, goose bumps rising on his arm and neck.

"Yes, Malfoy. I don't see your buddies around here. And where's your Daddy? Oh, did Daddy leave poor little baby?"

Harry heard Draco growl at that and leaned forward slightly, carefully not to overbalance, peeking into the alleyway. Draco was standing face to face with two men Harry did not know. One was massively built and had long, dirty hair, the other was rather short and plumb, nervously wringing his hands. Draco seemed ready to jump up a fight against them any second, although he was clearly outnumbered.

"Well, Malfoy?"

"Go to hell, Greyback!" Draco turned to walk away but the larger of the two caught him by his hair, yanking him back around.

"Not so fast, Malfoy! There is something I like to have from you. May I help your memory a little? It's been awhile. You still earn me ten grand."

The man had spoken in a dangerous, low voice and Harry had to strain his ears to understand him. The other man nodded and grinned at Draco.

"I don't know why you are here but I'm surprised and delighted. Could it mean you are here to pay your debts?"

Harry could see Draco rolling his eyes. A task, as his head was still bent back uncomfortably by the man pulling his hair. "I don't owe you nothing, Greyback," he spat.

The blow had come so sudden and unexpected, even Harry jumped in his cover. Draco lay crumpled in a heap on the ground but he seemed to recover fast and scrambled back to his feet, holding a hand up to stop the flow of blood gushing from his nose. "You are going to regret that," he said, voice muffled.

The short man cackled. "And what is that supposed to mean? Are _you_ going to call the police? Or are you going to run to your father?"

Draco ignored him but the other man had nothing of that.

"Where is my money?"

"I don't have any money, Greyback." Draco's voice sounded tired now.

The next blow sent Draco to the ground again, clutching his stomach. Harry's hands where sweaty, his stomach turned at the sight and he feverishly thought of what to do. Even if he managed to reach his phone and somehow call the police unnoticed, he was sure they would arrive too late. The short guy had taken to kicking Draco who was still lying on the ground, curling into a protective ball as the blows rained down upon him.

The large guy grabbed Draco by the fabric of his jacket and hoisted him into the air, smashing him against the next wall. "I'm going to write a note someplace you definitely won't forget," he growled. Harry saw a blade flashing and before he could grab a decent thought, he had stepped out of the concealing shadow.

"Leave him alone!"

He heard Draco gasp and the other two men turned to look at Harry who stood in the middle of the road, leaning on his crutches. The larger one was the first to laugh. It sounded like gravel rolling down a hill.

"And who are you, _cripple_?"

Harry bit the inside of his lips, his knuckles white around the handles of the crutches. "Leave him alone or I am going to call the police," he repeated, his voice slightly breaking.

"Harry… no." Draco's eyes were wild and he squirmed against the grip pinning him to the wall.

"Uhhh… can it be the faggot's boooyfriend?" The fat man squealed, jumping up and down in apparent delight. "Malfoy, do you have a boooyfriend!?"

"Shut up, Peter," the larger man ordered and the fat one fell silent at once. He grinned maliciously, small eyes darting from the large guy to Harry and back.

The larger man let go of Draco, causing the blond to slide down the wall, and approached Harry with a frown on his face. He stopped directly in front of him and Harry could smell the reek coming from him, could see every single scar in the other man's dirty face. Fear bubbled in his stomach and he could barely contain a shiver.

The man placed a finger on Harry's chest. "It's a bad thing to hurt a cripple."

He shoved against Harry with the flat of his hand and Harry stumbled backwards, losing his precarious balance at once. For one second he thought he could hold himself upright but then his foot caught at one of the cobble stones and he went down on his back hard, pain shooting through his body and crutches clattering to the ground.

The large man laughed again and the other joined in, his laughter high-pitched and unnerving.

"Take this as a warning. Next time I won't be so nice." With that the man snatched his companion and ushered him into the next alleyway. Within seconds they were gone.

Harry pushed himself up on his elbows, his ears ringing. Draco had slumped at the foot of the wall, but came to his feet and knelt down at Harry's side at once, his blood smeared face contorted in concern.

"Fuck, Harry! Are you okay?"

Harry tentatively touched the back of his head. He winced at the pain but was relieved he saw no blood. Draco extended a bloody hand to help him up but Harry ignored it, collecting his crutches from the ground around him and using one to push himself upright. He swayed a little, his head had surely taken more than just a small blow to it.

Draco, who had kept his hands at his side while Harry had struggled to get up from the ground, grabbed his shoulder. "You sure you are okay, Harry?"

Harry glared at the hand on his shoulder and then at Draco. "I'm fine, Draco," he hissed, causing Draco to let go of him immediately. Harry took a few steps to the side, resting with his back against a wall. Draco was still there, staring at him.

"What the fuck was that, Draco?" Harry spat, still panting. His racing heart was only slowly calming down. One of these guys had actually had a knife! What idiocy had ridden him to stand up to them? He could as well be gutted and dead by now. A shiver ran through him as he thought of it.

"I'm sorry, Harry, I... I can explain that."

"Yeah? You better have a damn good explanation. Ten grand? And these guys… is this Princeton or the Bronx?"

"I know it sounds weird."

Harry laughed coldly. "It sounds totally bogus."

Draco tentatively came closer. "I… I think you should go home. I call a cab for you."

"I'm perfectly capable of calling my own cab, Draco. And thank you but I'd rather walk. Alone if you don't mind."

Draco stared at him. "You can't walk home now!"

Anger started to boil in Harry's stomach. "Yes? And who are you to decide that, Malfoy? Maybe you should better go after your criminal friends and start making amendments for the money you owe them."

"They are not my friends. And I owe them nothing. This is… a long story."

"I bet it is. I don't think I want to hear it tonight. Or ever."

Draco finally snapped. "Good, fine. Then I'll just leave you here. I won't pester you any further, I swear. If that's what you want… I'm not going to force you to do anything." He turned and started walking away, dabbing the fabric of his sleeve against his nose that still oozed blood.

"That is exactly what I want, Malfoy!" Harry yelled at his back. He waited until Draco had rounded a corner and he could not hear his retreating steps anymore before he gave in to the pain and the exhaustion that rolled over him as the effect of adrenaline wore off and he half fell again, half let himself down on the ground with his back against the wall and his head between his quivering knees.

He took a cab back to the apartment that night.


	5. Chapter 5

Harry forced himself not to think of Draco or that night. Somehow he managed. He got up every day and went to work and from time to time even interacted with Ron or his other colleagues. He accepted that he had reached some kind of dead end in his research and started looking broader again, trying other stuff he had been interested before but had neglected in favor of the one project. Ray approved and the professor at Princeton at least did not comment on it and although Harry was reluctant to admit it, it was the right thing to do and he should have done it earlier. It would set him behind his goal of gaining a PhD for months, if not a year, but he realized he had been running against a wall head-on for a long time now, gaining nothing.

One late evening, Harry was lying comfortably in bed, reading a book that had nothing to do with work for once, someone rang the doorbell. Harry frowned, placed the e-book reader down on the table next to the bed and transferred to his wheelchair. Still wary of the experience a few weeks ago, not so sure about the peacefulness of the small town anymore, he laboriously got into a standing position, bracing himself against the doorframe to get a look through the spyhole at who was visiting him at this hour. He still wondered at why there was a spyhole at this height in an apartment marked as "accessible".

Harry nearly toppled over when he registered who was standing outside and let himself fall back into the chair. He considered not opening at all but the blond man outside had taken to ringing the doorbell without pause now and Harry was afraid he would wake every single person in the neighborhood.

When Harry opened the door, Draco, obviously having misjudged Harry's height in the wheelchair, stumbled inside and nearly landed in Harry's lap. He straightened himself with his hands on Harry's shoulder and Harry hurriedly put in the brakes on the wheels to prevent rolling backwards. He recoiled when he smelled Draco's breath.

"Have you been drinking?"

Draco chuckled and swayed as he found his bearings. "Maybe a little?"

"You are pissed, Draco!"

"Always the clever one," Draco hiccoughed, trying to pinch Harry's cheek who swatted his hand away, causing the other to stumble backward uncoordinated, bumping into the wall.

"What do you want, Draco?"

"Told you what I want," Draco slurred, his hands scraping against the wall behind him. "Should have… sh- should have listened better, Harry."

"Leave me alone Draco, I don't want to repeat myself."

Draco slid down the wall, babbling. His long figure blocked the whole narrow hallway. Harry could not even get past him to close the door.

"'M not leaving," Draco mumbled. "Isss… not as if you could do anything. You can roll over my toes all you want."

Harry balled his fists, trying to compose himself.

Suddenly Draco was crying and crawling over the floor towards Harry who was not quick enough to release the breaks again.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Draco wailed but stopped before he had reached Harry, obviously sensing through his drunken stupor that it would be a bad idea to get closer. "I… Harry, I can't… not anymore… I'm going to… please, Harry? Let me... let me stay, okay?"

"It's not as if I could do anything, as you have very correctly pointed out," Harry snapped.

"I said sorry, already, Harry. Harry… please?"

"Go back home, Draco."

Draco stilled, sniffing. "Don't have a home."

"Yeah, whatever. Go back to the hotel or where it is you are sleeping. Some… guy-you-happen-to-know's home."

Draco shook his head. "Not sleeping anywhere."

Harry frowned. "What do you mean?"

But Draco kept shaking his head and curled into a ball on the floor.

Harry huffed. "For heaven's sake, Draco…"

Draco mistook his reaction as affirmative. He stuck his head out of where his limbs were all tangled up and smiled at Harry. "'M going to sleep here, Harry" and he patted the stretch of bare floor at his side.

Harry decided that he could not bring himself to let Draco out in the night in this condition even if he managed to get the blond to leave somehow. He sighed. "Okay Draco, you win. You can stay but-"

Draco nodded his head rapidly up and down.

"But! Not on the floor. I have a sofa, as you might recall."

Draco somehow managed to veer into the living room where he collapsed onto the much too short sofa. Harry contemplated it but decided he could not help it if Draco woke with a hell of a backache. It was better than the floor and Harry would not give up his bed. He wheeled into his bed room and rummaged into the small drawer to retrieve a woolen blanket he had never used.

When he returned, Draco was already snoring softly, a strand of blond hair moving up and down with every breath he took. Harry watched him, trying in vain to recall the anger that had stirred in him only minutes ago. Draco looked peaceful, innocent while sleeping, his lips curved into a small smile. Harry tore his eyes away from those lips to throw the blanket over the lean body before he moved to Draco's feet to remove his shoes. Draco stirred a little when he placed them on the floor, mumbling something. When Harry wheeled back into his bed room to get ready for sleeping, too, he thought he heard a slurred "Lo' you".

Harry slept fitfully, sensing Draco's presence in the other room even though the door between them was closed. Two times he actually made the effort to transfer to his wheelchair to get out and check on Draco, making sure that… what? He still breathed? He was still there? Harry could not say. When he finally decided to forget about more sleep early in the morning and perceived Draco still lying on the sofa, in nearly the same position as Harry had left him before, his stomach made a little leap. He passed Draco on the way to the tiny bathroom, maneuvering around carefully to not wake him.

When Harry had showered, changed and dried his hair with a towel and was on the way back to his room, he found Draco sitting up on the sofa with his head in his hands.

Draco winced as he realized Harry's presence. "Shit… Harry, I… I'm sorry. Fuck… my head."

"Hope it hurts," Harry murmured, staying where he was.

"I'm such a fool, Harry."

Harry said nothing at first, not actually being of a different opinion. "How did you find me?"

Draco sighed. "Weasely… Ron told me."

Harry lifted an eyebrow, surprised. He had really not expected that.

"I'm- I'm leaving right away-" Draco had a coughing fit, his whole body heaving. "You- you don't want me here, I get it. I got it before, only yesterday… I'm sorry. This is so embarrassing." He stood and swayed and would have fallen had Harry not reacted fast and quickly wheeled forward to steady him at the hip.

"Draco, you are boiling!" Harry guided a shivering Draco down on the sofa, feeling his unnatural hot skin on his arms, his hands, his forehead.

Draco's teeth clattered when he tried to press them together. "I'm fine."

Harry shook his head. "You are sick. You have a fever, I'm sure."

Draco sank back onto the sofa, groaning. "It's nothing."

But Harry grabbed the blanket and motioned for Draco to lie down again, covering him. "You are not leaving like this. I'm sure I have some meds for you and you should at least drink and eat something. And I'm calling a cab. Where are you staying, you said?"

Harry stopped midway back to the bathroom when Draco did not answer. "Draco?"

Draco only groaned again, pulling the blanket over his head. "I don't need a cab."

"Yeah, you do."

"Ha, so now _you_ know that, or what?"

Harry returned with his bag of medication and opened it on his lap. "I'm the one with more medical experience, remember?" He started piling glass bottles and packages with pills on the small table in front of the sofa. "I can't believe I have nothing against fever here."

Draco opened one eye. "You have half an apothecary there. I'm sure you have something for every single illness I can imagine."

Harry ignored him. "Ha!" He triumphantly held out a small bottle. "One of these, two of those," he added a battered package. "Against headaches. And this. Against the cough." Another bottle joined the ones on the table.

Draco rolled his eyes and groaned again when he did. "Shit... I was really gone yesterday, wasn't I?"

"A little." Harry returned with a glass of water from the kitchen and forced Draco to sit up. Draco scowled at him but took the offered pills and washed them down. He laid down again immediately afterwards, small beads of sweat on his forehead.

Harry took the glass from him. "Sleep. You can still leave when you feel better."

Draco nodded imperceptibly and his eyes flattered shut.

It was a Saturday so Harry spent the day at the apartment while Draco slept on the sofa, only waking up when Harry forced him to drink something or checked his temperature with a hand on his forehead. Although Harry indeed had a small arsenal of medication with him, he had realized that he had not thought of bringing a thermometer. Draco stayed feverish during the day, but when he was awake he seemed aware enough and the fever did not seem to spike. Harry hoped Draco would feel better soon.

Towards the evening, Harry was reading again in his bed when he heard Draco moving in the adjacent room. He transferred to his wheelchair and met Draco, who had started to wriggle into his coat, in the living room.

"You are leaving?"

"Yes." Draco's movements were slow and he already started sweating from the exercise.

"Give me the address, Draco. For the cab," he added when Draco blinked at him confused.

"Don't need a-"

"Stop that bullshit, Draco! The address?"

"Hng…" Draco slumped back into the sofa and shook his head, weakly. Harry put one hand on his forehead.

"I think your fever has spiked. You are going nowhere today."

"Need to get… need my stuff. My backpack," Draco slurred, trying to rise again while Harry held him down, starting to get concerned.

"I'll call Ron to get it. Which hotel?" He helped Draco to get his legs on the sofa again and pulled the blanket tight around him.

.

.

.

"Where?!"

"Next to the Institute for Advanced Study."

"In the woods?"

"If I understood him right, it's on the other side of the building from the road leading out of town. Apparently there is some old shack or something."

"You sure he is not making fun of you? He really said he lived there all the time?"

"Ron, he is sick, I don't think he was joking."

Harry could hear Ron grumble on the other end of the line. "Okay… well… but I owe you."

Harry swallowed the retort that if it had not been for Ron, Draco would not be here in the first place. "Big time. Thanks a lot."

Harry ended the call and laid the phone on the table next to the sofa. Draco speech had been nearly unintelligible when he had tried telling Harry that he indeed did not stay in a hotel or at a friend's house. Harry had only gotten the vague description of the place near the institute from him before Draco had slipped into a fitful sleep again. He was shivering now, close to unconsciousness, and Harry went in his room to get his blanket for him.

Around the time Ron arrived with Draco's backpack, a sleeping bag under one arm and a huge flashlight in the other hand, Harry was considering calling an ambulance. Draco was still shivering; moaning slightly when he thrashed around and barely noticed what was going on around him when he was woken up. Ron followed him to the sofa, looking down at the sweating wreck of Draco.

"You should have seen the place he was sleeping. No heating. The walls could not be named that and I would bet the roof was leaking like hell. He had a few water bottles stored there. The water was half frozen. It's a wonder he is still alive, if you ask me."

"Shit, Ron. I did not know." Harry raked his hands through his hair, worried, when a thought occurred to him. "I… do you think he has health insurance?"

Ron shook his head. "Don't think so. It's not your fault. Who could have known?" Ron place Draco's stuff at the head side of the sofa. "My mother always makes cold compressions around my legs when I have a fever," he murmured.

Harry raised his head. "How does that work?"

In the end Ron and Harry stayed up during half of the night, taking turns at staying at Draco's side, changing the compressions, which were mostly just damp towels wrapped around Draco's legs, regularly. Draco seemed to heat them up and evaporate the water in no time.

"How did you contact him, anyway?" Harry asked, reaching over to lift one of Draco's legs while Ron stood ready with fresh towels.

Ron blushed and took his time to wrap the wet, cold towel around Draco's leg and added a dry one to protect the sofa. "Uh… hm… remember when you asked me to log into your Skype account? Well… uh…"

"You hacked into my account?"

"I… well… I knew the password. You did not change it."

Harry glowered at him. "Great."

Ron straightened and Harry gently lowered Draco's leg back onto the sofa and pulled the blanket in place again.

Ron defensively raised his arms. "I… I thought you two… you two needed to talk. You were miserable, Harry, everyone could see that. I thought… you needed a little push."

"Did you, now?" Harry snapped, tired and irritable. "Well, next time, stop thinking so much."

Ron scooped up the used towels and stalked into the bathroom. "You know what?" He said, when he returned, face red from anger. "Next time I'm doing exactly that. I leave you cooking in your own misery until you shrivel up like a raisin!" He pointed to Draco, then jabbed his finger against Harry's chest. "You two, Draco and you, are the greatest self-centered, self-pitying dick-heads that I know! Stop being… being so freaking noble and… sacrificing… and fucking _talk_ to each other."

Harry opened and closed his mouth. "I- I'm not… Who do you call self-pitying?"

Ron did not tear his gaze away when Harry stared at him. "I'm calling you self-pitying, Harry. Because all you do is thinking about what you can't have and how you will never get it and you don't even try because you like it that way."

Harry was thunderstruck, his blood pounding in his ears. "I… ARE YOU COMPLETELY OUT OF YOUR MIND, WEASLEY? I'm not sitting in this _shit_ -" Harry pounded the wheels of his wheelchair with one fist. "-BECAUSE I LIKE IT! I would really like to be able to walk around as you do, thank you very much. If you think I actually _like_ being… in pain, and- and dizzy, and freaking tired most of the time and challenged by… by a fucking screwing lid on a fucking water bottle than YOU MUST BE TOTALLY INSANE!"

Now it was Ron's turn to look perplex. "I- I didn't mean… HE is right here," Ron's finger stabbed the air in front of Draco who stirred slightly upon the noise. " _He_ came to _you_ but all you do is turning him away without really trying to… to figure something out. All _you_ do is telling yourself how you can't have him, out of whatever reason I can't think of and continue wallowing in - yes, Harry, until you prove me wrong I'll have to call it that - self-pity."

Harry deflated, watching Draco moan and wriggle under the blanket. The anger was still cursing through his body, he could barely think straight. Could Ron have a point there? Was he actually being self-centered, self-pitying? Harry said nothing, just tucked the blanket tighter around Draco, then turned the chair and wheeled into his bedroom without glancing at Ron again.

Finally, at around three in the morning, the fever broke and Draco slipped into a more peaceful sleep. Harry fell asleep on his bed mere seconds later. He barely heard Ron saying goodbye and closing the front door when he left before his eyes fell shut.

.

.

.

It took much of the next day, when Harry softly slipped onto the sofa next to Draco to reach over and test his temperature, until Draco opened his eyes and they were not as glassy and feverish as they had been before. A small sigh escaped Draco's lips and Harry pulled his hand away at once. He looked at Draco. "We need to… talk. But not today. Maybe tomorrow, when you feel better."

He said it reluctantly and still did not accept everything Ron had said that night. But the accusation stung and he was determined to prove him wrong.

Draco nodded and Harry had already scooted to the edge of the sofa and reached for his wheelchair when he heard Draco's whisper.

"Can we make this work?"

Harry did not know what to say, he just could not think when he could hear Draco's slightly enhanced breathing at his back. Finally he decided for some version of the truth. Not turning around, he said: "I don't know," and transferred.


	6. Chapter 6

It was an unusual warm spring day and the sun had burned down on the house for hours. Draco had slept most of the time, a calm and strengthening sleep. Harry suggested breathing fresh air towards the afternoon and they moved to the surprisingly spacious porch in front of Harry's apartment, where a rusty garden swing stood in one corner. Harry assumed one of his predecessors had bought it and had left it there when moving out. Somehow it must have slipped past the eyes of the apartment administration staff.

Harry sat down on the worn padded seating next to Draco and started moving the swing slightly. The old metal emitted small creaking sounds. He let his gaze wander over the green lawns of Princeton. The snow had been melted away by now and the grass was bathing in the golden light of the sun. For some time no one was speaking.

"It might grow worse," Harry finally said. Draco did not move under his woolen blanket but Harry knew he was listening. "I can't tell when or how worse. It might stay like this forever. But there is the possibility that in five, ten years I won't be able to sit next to you unassisted like this. I might be confined to a bed 24 hours a day. I... I might not be able to speak, anymore. Or swallow, for that matter. Even provided I could still work, physically, I might not be able to do so, cognitively. Draco, I- I don't know why someone would want to go through something like that even... even witnessing it."

Harry stopped talking and the swing stopped moving, leaving them in utter silence. Harry grew more and more tense as the minutes stretched. He longed for a reaction from Draco, as much as he feared it. He could not back off now, he knew that and maybe that was the reason why it felt like the biggest mistake of all. He had never been as cornered and vulnerable as right there. When Draco continued sitting wrapped in the woolen blanket, silent as the bare sky, Harry felt every strain of his body screaming at him to get up and flee. He could not tell later how he had survived sitting there, as minutes melted to eternities before Draco spoke, his voice so low Harry had to shift his weight and lean over.

"When I was younger, I thought my father was god. What he did was right and others were wrong. I think every child thinks like that. For me, it stayed like that a very long time. Now I know... But during High-School and the first years at University I didn't want to realize it. I did awful things, Harry. Drug dealing, blackmailing... Seducing, manipulating, torturing… I knew my father approved of it, even encouraged it. There is more than one college career blown to pieces because of me. And I enjoyed it. I liked the money but I especially liked the feeling of power. And I swear there is not one day I don't regret it with all my heart… Then something happened that made me open my eyes, finally, and I could _see_ what I had done. I was repelled by that, by myself. I still am. I have to be thankful, actually, for what happened because I don't know if I had ever been able to see if it were not for Weasley… Ron Weasley."

Harry involuntarily gasped, surprised at the mentioning of Ron.

"I am gay," Draco said, wrapping the blanket tighter around himself. "I discovered it early and I kept it a secret from my father. I never questioned my father's opinion and this did not change with knowing he despised homosexuals. I felt… strangely superior to him, leaving him totally clueless about that part of my identity. Still, I knew he could never find out and I was careful not to give myself away. Then there was Ron. I hated him, our families hated each other. His family represents all my family rebukes. We were enemies at university from the second we first met and although he provoked some of what happened later I am the most to blame. He… tried interfering with my business, tried to get me expelled or reported to the police. As revenge I… stole his girlfriend from him."

Draco looked at Harry for a second at that, before directing his eyes again to the lawns.

"She came willingly, although I must admit my intentions where never honest. Ron was furious, of course, and I don't blame him. He… managed to take a photo of me and a male professor in a… compromising position. He blackmailed me, said he would make my methods public, ruin my university career if I did not present myself to the police. I did not believe he would actually do that until he sent the picture to my father."

Draco blinked in the light, his grey eyes filled with liquid gold.

"My father went totally berserk. He kicked me out the day he got the photo, disinherited me and told me I could never see him or my mother ever again. That was, I think, when my picture of him shattered. It did not hurt so much that he took my home or my future money. But I never believed he could pull my mother on his side. I love my mother, she… I don't know why she never left the bastard... I was in a rage but I was helpless. "

Draco shifted a little. "Well… you know the rest. I left the MIT, I went to India, I started some studying here and there and finally I gave up and that's it. Then I met you."

Draco's eyes locked with Harry's and Harry forced himself not to hold his breath.

"What about the ten grand?"

Draco chuckled and looked sheepish. "I dumped the last load of drugs I got from one of my deliverers, Fenrir Greyback is his name, he's an old school friend of my father's, in the Charles River."

"What?" Harry involuntarily grinned.

Draco nodded. "Hm… yeah. It seems he is still a little angry about that…"

Harry frowned. "So… it's dangerous for you to be here. Where Greyback is?"

"No…" Draco leaned back and started rocking the swing slowly. "I would not say dangerous. Besides, I am sure he did not know where I stayed and I don't think he followed me to yours."

Harry bit on his lip.

Talking seemed to have drained both of them. They sat in silence until Harry could see Draco shiver underneath the blanket and ushered him inside. An early, small and wordless dinner followed at the end of which Draco announced he would go to sleep. He looked to Harry as if asking for permission and Harry shrugged. Draco could stay for tonight and leave as soon as he had a place he could go to. Harry would not send him back to the shack just after nursing him back to a relatively healthy state.

The absence of a reaction from Draco's side was unnerving but later, in his bed, Harry decided it was probably only for his own best. He did not need to hear an explanation; he understood well what Draco was thinking. It was maybe even a relief not having to listen to any false excuses. In the end, both knew why they did not work out together. As Harry squirmed in bed to find a position in which his left leg was less tingling, he thought he might be okay with it. At least, they would part in peace, having settled all arguments.

Three more days followed during which the insightful afternoon on the porch was not mentioned. Harry went to work every morning and came back late in the afternoon. Draco was still asleep when he left the house and mostly went to bed early. He grew seemingly stronger every day, his skin less pale, his jutting cheekbones less pronounced. The dark circles under his eyes vanished. Harry began to wonder when Draco intended to leave, growing increasingly nervous about it. The longer Draco stayed, the harder it would be for Harry to see him go. On the other hand, Harry secretly treasured the last moments together with him.

Harry was experiencing a slight worsening of symptoms due to the sudden warmer spring weather. Within only a few days, temperatures had spiked and left Harry torn between joy about being able to spend more time outside and irritation about tingling arms and stiff legs. He knew he was not innocent himself, having done not even half the exercising he was supposed to do. His PT Sara had given him instructions for the time at Princeton, where he did not go to therapy regularly. But all that had happened lately had distracted him from following that.

That was why, from the second morning of warmer weather on, he got up as soon as he woke early in the morning and slowly detached his protesting body from the mattress. He silently wheeled past Draco curled up on the small sofa and started his day with exercises on the porch. During this time of day the air was still cold and the early sunbeams were mild. He placed a mat on the wooden floor planks for stretching exercises and continued with a few light exercises aimed to build up muscles in his legs. He usually finished off with one of the despised balance exercises.

In the morning of the fourth day he was standing at the front of the porch, his fingertips placed on the worn wooden fencing separating the porch from the rest of the garden outside and his face turned to the sun with closed eyes while he tried to slowly shift his weight from the right to the left leg and back.

"You're doing well."

Harry startled and was thrown off balance as he turned towards Draco who had appeared from nowhere, standing in the door leading to the porch, only clothed in his underwear. Harry stumbled, surprised, and tried grabbing the fence before he realized it was out of reach. The floor rushing towards him he braced himself for the impact and blinked when nothing happened. Draco had come to his rescue fast as a thunderbolt, wrapped his arms around him and prevented the fall.

"I… I'm sorry, I shouldn't have… I startled you…" Draco apologized and loosened his grip as soon as Harry had his legs sorted out.

Harry placed his flat hands against Draco's chest for support, his heart racing from the rush of adrenaline. "Uh… ah… nothing happened. I'm good at falling, anyway."

Draco did not laugh at Harry's joke. His grey eyes were dark, studying Harry, his hands ghosted over his waist as if prepared for him to lose his balance again. Then the softness of his lips met Harry's.


	7. Chapter 7

Harry's gasp was swallowed by Draco's kiss and the other's renewed grip kept him upright, since his knees suddenly felt like jelly. He felt his heart pounding against Draco's chest and Draco's own accompanying it, two frantic drums not quite in the same beat.

Draco broke away before Harry could make sense of the mess in his head, could come up with anything else to say then: "Draco… what…?!"

Draco's expression fell and he blushed, taking a step back and releasing Harry. "I… I'm sorry. I thought that we… I mean… That day on the swing…"

Harry stumbled backwards and steadied himself against the fence in his back. "Did you even listen, that day? Did you get what I said?"

"I… of course I listened, Harry. I've known most of it all along. Well, not everything but… you are not the only one who knows how to handle a computer. Or google." Draco folded his arms across his bare chest, frowning at Harry.

Harry bit on his lip, his fingers digging into the soft wood of the fence. "You've known?" Saying it like that it did not sound that impossible but he could not remember anyone had ever done that before. His colleagues knew about his condition, certainly had a little understanding about what it meant, but no one had ever thought of doing online research, as far as he knew. "And still you…" Harry's voice died out.

Draco stared at him and then laughed; a rough, dry sound. "You don't get it, do you? I… I love you, Harry and I don't care about what will be in five years. Or next year. Or next month. I've wanted to be with you, every freaking moment since I first met you. Maybe I did not always know what I got myself into… maybe I don't do now. But I don't care about that. All I care about is you."

Harry gaped at Draco while the floor seemed to have developed a life on his own, rocking under his feet, the three words Draco had said echoing in his head over and over again.

Draco turned away from Harry. "I'm sorry, Harry. It's entirely my fault. That day on the porch… All the time I thought you had forgiven me… That you believed I could have changed from the person I have been. But I suppose you are right. I don't deserve anything else-"

"Draco…"

"I'm so stupid, Harry. This is so embarrassing, how could I think that you and me… I'm a criminal without a college degree who can't even afford a hotel room. How could I think for a second you would want to put up with me? I'm going to grab my stuff right away and-"

"Draco!"

Draco stopped his babbling when Harry took the first step towards him, fingers brushing along the wood behind him until there was only air to grope left. Draco half turned to Harry, eyes widening as Harry took another and another step, swayed and took two more fast steps, eyes fixed on Draco. He nearly bumped into Draco with the last one, grabbing his shoulders and crashing their lips together. They kissed like they were about to drown, Draco pulling Harry closer after half a second of shock, making it more comfortable for Harry.

"I… I really need help here," Draco panted when their lips finally parted. "I don't know where this is going right now. So… you don't think I'm the biggest asshole on earth?"

"I'm sure there are worse," Harry answered, grinning weakly. "I… You sure about all of that?"

"Yeah…" Draco breathed, brushing a strand of hair out of Harry's face. "Stop worrying."

"If you stop worrying as well..."

Draco sighed. "It's not going to be that simple, Harry. I like you and I worry about you _because_ I like you. You need to get this into that thick head of yours and stop feeling guilty about it."

Harry said nothing, only narrowed his eyes.

Draco sighed again and his nose nearly touched Harry's. "I think we were better at kissing than talking," he mumbled and his lips brushed Harry's again. Harry lowly groaned when Draco's tongue touched his lower lip, probing, testing.

"Hm… yes. Do you mind moving this somewhere where we can sit down?"


	8. Chapter 8

The door opened and Harry turned one wheel of his chair, facing towards it.

"I have a cough," he told the middle-aged doctor standing in the doorframe.

It had been days since Draco and Harry had kissed on the porch and although Harry would rather like to stay home and spent every minute with Draco, he had obligations at the department. Yesterday he had to prepare soil samples that some students had brought from a trip, working long hours in the laboratory. Today Harry had been forced to stop shortly after midday when he had just began to run the first tests on the micro CT. Suddenly the room had started to spin and although he had been sitting down he had grabbed the desk in front of him out of shear fear of falling. Only later, when he had somehow managed to store the samples away without destroying them in the process due to a tremor in his hands he had never experienced before, he realized the cough. That was when he knew something was wrong. Way out of the usual wrong.

"Hm…" The doctor only glanced shortly at Harry and produced a pen and a prescription block fom out of his jacket. "You have a cold. I'll give you something against the coughing."

"I don't have a cold!" Harry protested. "I have dizziness, nausea, tremors and-" he had to take a gasping breath, trying to fill his exploding lungs with air. "-I can't fucking breath!"

The doctor raised an eyebrow at him and opened the patient folder with the questionnaire Harry had been asked to fill out prior to his admission to the examine room. Harry had called Ron still from the lab and his friend had recommended going to this hospital nearby, because it was a free hospital. There would not be any complications with his insurance this way. Harry had taken a taxi and fortunately did not have to wait long to meet a doctor.

Said doctor just gave a short snort. "In case you forgot," he said, closing the folder, already turning to leave, "you have MS. These symptoms are not unusual. Breathing problems are probably caused by spasms in your intercostal muscles. Make an appointment and we will adjust your medication."

"This is not an MS hug!" Harry propelled the wheelchair forward, his trembling and sweaty hands wrapping around the hand rims with difficulty. "I don't have-" Another coughing fit prevented him from continuing.

"Interesting." The doctor had crossed the room in two strides, staring at him now as if seeing him for the first time.

"W… what?" Harry rasped.

The doctor grabbed one of the hands Harry had been holding in front of his mouth and turned his palm upwards. "This."

Harry stared at the pink sprinkles uncomprehending.

"You've been coughing blood before?"

.

.

Minutes later Harry found himself in a hospital bed, pure oxygen streaming through a mask on his mouth into his lungs, making him feel loads better now that he did not have to fight for every single breath anymore. The doctor had told him he would send one of his assistants to question him and soon enough he heard the sliding doors opening.

"You?!"

Harry lifted his head a little to get a look at the person who had just entered. The woman in the white doctor's coat stared at him incredulous, her lips a thin line, her hair a mess like last time.

"Oh hello, nice to see you again," Harry croaked under the mask. "Can I buy you a coffee later, this time?"

The woman whom Harry had met in the train station what felt like half a century ago, bristled with anger, shuffling papers on a memo board then turned to Harry again.

"I have to ask you a few questions, Mister… Potter. Where have you been as the symptoms showed up first?"

"In the laboratory. Do you have good coffee here?" He squinted at the name plate on her coat but it was askew and he could not decipher it. He was sure now however, that he had seen her even before the escalator incident.

"What kind of laboratory?" The assistant doctor fixed him across her memo board with a stern look.

"Soil analysis. All kinds of… chemical composition… micro CT scans…"

"Did you work with any chemicals?"

"Yes… but only harmless ones, I think. Today I didn't."

"Do you take drugs?"

"Yes. Come on, no coffee break? You look like you need one."

The woman's eyebrows were nearly vanishing in her hairline. "You do? What drugs?"

"Prescription drugs. They rule, though, believe me."

The woman rolled her eyes. "I'll need to take a blood sample."

Harry decided to keep his mouth shut as long as she was near him with a needle in her hands. After she had taken his blood she left the room without another word. Harry felt slightly dizzy and tired and fell asleep minutes later.

.

.

"Toxins screen has been negative as has-"

"Did you order to investigate the lab?"

"They are on their way. His neurological symptoms point towards a relapse, we should administer prednisone."

"We can't give him steroids as long as we can't exclude a heart problem. We need to find the cause of the pulmonary edema."

"He told me he didn't take drugs and the toxins screen was-"

"It's clean now! That doesn't mean he didn't take drugs."

"But… if the relapse is left untreated he might suffer permanent nerve damage!"

Harry blinked and the two people in front of his bed came into focus. It was the doctor and his assistant again. As soon as Harry stirred the doctor turned towards him.

"Ok, MS-guy, what kind of drugs, except for prescription ones?"

Harry sighed. He was getting tired of that. "I already told your charming assistant. I don't do drugs."

"I'm aware of that but everybody lies. So again, what drugs?"

"I told you, no drugs!"

The doctor shrugged and left. The assistant loitered behind. "It will do you no good if you lie, you know."

"I'm not lying! I don't do-" He gasped but the air seemed to have suddenly gone from thick to solid.

The assistant approached him, frowning. "Are you alright?"

Her voice sounded strangely muffled and her face started to blur. Suddenly Harry's head was jerked backwards. His mouth opened in a cry but no sound came out as his body started to tremble uncontrollably. Pain exploded in his head, turning his vision yellow. Then black.

.

.

"That's not the point. The point is he got sick working at your laboratory!"

"You don't know that. No-one else got sick."

"Yet."

"What are you trying to say?"

"You should have kept an eye on him. Why was he there alone?"

"Because it is a soil laboratory, not a BSL-4 lab!"

Sound was tuning in and out as Harry slowly gained consciousness again. It took him forever and tremendous effort to convince his eyes to open and focus on the blurry forms right on the other side of the glass wall separating his room from the corridor.

"If you don't shut up I will ban you both from the hospital."

Harry could not see the third person but he recognized her voice. The doctor's assistant was somewhere inside the room. Harry tried to look around and discovered that even the thought of moving his head made the room spin.

"Either way, he is awake now. You can come in, but no bickering!"

Harry heart sped up as Draco and Ron entered. The former had his mouth in a thin line and his eyes sparkled dangerously. The latter looked worried and even a little guilty. Both lined up at the end of Harry's bed.

"Harry, how are you, mate?" Ron asked.

"I'm Ok," Harry managed to bring out from under the mask. He could not express how glad he was that Ron and Draco had come.

"Yeah, totally," Draco sneered. He came around and touched Harry's shoulder. He looked angry but his eyes shone from worry now. "They told us you've had a seizure."

Harry nodded slowly, trying to keep his eyes focused on Draco while the room spun around him.

"Is this… common?"

Harry shook his head. He had never had a seizure before.

"He's going to be alright, isn't he?" Ron asked the assistant in a pleading tone.

"We do what we can." The woman sighed and added: "His MS-related symptoms make it hard to diagnose."

Harry tried to smile reassuringly at Draco but failed. He had heard what the doctor had said before. His relapses most often were severe enough to be treated with steroids. Especially in the recent years since diagnosis this had allowed him to return to the same stable baseline. If now they could not apply those medicine because he might have another condition on top of that, he did not want to think about the consequences.

"That's enough now, guys. I need to run some more tests. You'll have to wait outside." The woman with the furious hair came into Harry's view, waving impatiently at his friends.

"Hermione!" Ron protested while Draco did not move from Harry's side.

In this moment the scene from the Inn on the Wharf came back to Harry. Of course! He had seen the woman before, together with Ron! No wonder something had been nagging at him constantly. She was Ron's girlfriend, the busy doctor-to-be.

"Out now, both of you." Hermione's voice left no room for discussion.

Draco looked as if he might object but then he squeezed Harry's shoulder before leaving the room after Ron, who shot gloomy looks back at Hermione. Hermione waited with her arms crossed until the door had closed before she set to work. Shortly after she had finished and left, Harry fell asleep again, exhausted.

The next time Harry awoke was to the sound of the doors sliding open. It was again Hermione, followed by the doctor.

"Heart rate is normal. Breathing problems persist in spite of intravenous administration of salbutamol. "

"Anything found at the lab?"

"Several possibly harmful chemicals but the patient said he didn't use any."

The doctor frowned and turned to Harry.

"What exactly have you been doing when the symptoms arose?"

"CT scan," Harry wheezed.

"Of what?" The doctor insisted.

"Soil."

"Funny. Where did the soil come from?"

"Abandoned…" Harry took a labored breath. "-oil field."

The doctor stopped short and scrutinized Harry's chart. Then he turned to Hermione. "Start him on IV Deltasone prednisone. He should be fine soon. Well, apart from… the rest."

The doctor turned to walk away when Harry struggled to get into a more sitting position, calling him back.

"What does… that mean? What's wrong?"

The doctor's grin was triumphant.

"You have MS."

"I…" The room had started to spin again. Harry squeezed his eyes shut briefly. "I know that."

"The soil samples you examined contain H2S, which is rather common in oil or gas fields and occurs from time to time in depleted ones. Hydrogen sulfide is a broad-spectrum poison that is however mostly affecting the nervous system."

Hermione, who had set to work on the medical instruments surrounding Harry stopped. "The analysis did not show hydrogen sulfide in the soil samples."

"Because it had already volatilized. I assume the patient had the highest exposure as he first opened the container where they were stored."

Something stroke Harry as odd. "But… H2S smells like… rotten eggs", he mumbled. If he had smelled anything like that, it would have been a warning sign to him, but he was sure there had been nothing unusual about the samples.

The doctor grabbed a flask with a blue liquid from the shelf, opened it and thrust it under Harry's nose. "How does that smell?"

Harry sniffed and frowned. "Doesn't smell at all."

Hermione's mouth dropped open and the doctor nodded, shaking the flask. "Respiratory paralysis, a common symptom of hydrogen sulfide poisoning. Seems you got a high dose at first contact. You don't even smell disinfectant which you should be glad of."

"But-"

"Your sense of smell will possibly return. The neurological symptoms could have been caused by the poison. Or the poison itself could have triggered an exacerbation. Either way we will treat you with steroids now that we can exclude heart problems. Loss of sense of smell, delayed pulmonary edema and seizures are most probably the poison's work."

"What about that?"

"At such a late time after exposure oxygen is the best antidote. We'll keep you here during the night and I'm sure you can breathe normally by tomorrow."

Harry momentarily closed his eyes as the information sank in. Everything would be alright. After years of bad news he could not quite fully believe what the doctor had said and wished Draco were here to reassure him that he was not dreaming.

When he opened his eyes again, the doctor had left. Hermione stood in front of his bed, the lines around her mouth softened. "I'm glad for you." She smiled and Harry realized she could be beautiful when she dropped her usual sour look.

He smiled back, letting his head fall onto the pillow, exhausted. "Thanks. For everything."


	9. Chapter 9

The following weeks were a blur. After Harry returned from the hospital he stayed home for a week, recovering, Draco, Ron and Hermione keeping him company most of the time. When he returned to work Harry worked hard to concentrate for a longer time, thoughts about Draco occupying his mind, and when he was home, he could not get enough of the blond, as if he feared he could vanish again. Needless to say there was not much talking involved. Harry could not leave his hands off of Draco and the other seemed to feel the same way, intent on keeping contact whenever Harry was close, as if afraid he might dissolve otherwise. Draco himself stayed inside of the apartment most time, since Harry deemed it too risky for him to go out while Greyback was searching for him.

They returned to an old argument one evening when Draco poured chopped carrots into the pan Harry was stirring, sitting in his wheelchair in front of the lowered stove. Draco's fingers brushed Harry's neck, leaving goose bumps in their trail.

"I've never seen you walk like that," Draco said.

"What do you mean?"

"That day on the porch..." Draco went on, carefully keeping his voice neutral.

"Hm…" Harry did not turn his eyes away from the pan, knowing where this was heading to. "It's not a miracle. My walking is not so bad actually; I just get tired very fast. And I would fall on my face on other days, as a matter of fact, because of… well… balance… It's usually better during the winter, when it's cold."

"Why is that?" Draco hand came to rest in Harry's neck, sending shivers down Harry's spine.

"There's no scientific bulletproof hypothesis, yet. It's just something commonly experience from people with MS."

"I see. So when we met in summer…"

"I was in a way worse condition back then, yes. During winter I barely use the chair."

"It's not summer, yet. So..."

Harry was silent for a second. "It's not very pretty." It was true, he did not particularly like to display his awkward way of walking without support, especially not in Draco's presence. He was so used to living alone, suddenly sharing private space with someone else made him feel even more self-conscious than he usually was.

Draco bent down, his lips close to Harry's ear when he whispered: "You are pretty, regardless of anything."

Harry slapped his arm and squirmed in the seat. "Shut up..."

Suddenly Draco jumped. "Harry!"

Harry blinked. "What?"

"The carrots!"

"Shit!" Harry hurriedly picked up the neglected spoon and stirred the carrots but they were already deep brown on one side. "Ugh… great."

"It doesn't matter," Draco exclaimed cheerfully, fondly tousled Harry's hair and then returned to his chopping plate. "They don't have to be perfect, I like them that way."

Harry scowled at his back.

.

.

"I thought about vacation," Harry announced later, while they were eating.

"Hm… cool," Draco said when he had swallowed. "Maybe… maybe we could…"

"Yeah…" Harry mused and after a split second of silence both chuckled.

"It would surely be good if I did not show my pretty face around here for some time," Draco joked. "Been to New York already? Since it's just around the corner…"

"No, but I would love to."

That elicited more laughter from Draco. "Honestly, what did you do all the time you've been here?"

Harry turned his eyes towards his plate. "I intended to but it did not work out. Later I was pretty much wrapped up in work and now…"

"And now?"

Harry winked at him over a fork full of food. "Now I'm wrapped up in you."

They left on Friday evening, after Harry had made sure his laptop was up and running calculations for the next week on its own. To Harry's dismay, the day they had planned for the departure to New York turned out to be the hottest since he had arrived and although it was nowhere near summer temperatures, they stroke home hard.

Draco picked him up in front of the institute's building, his own backpack shouldered, Harry's trunk in one hand and eyes sparkling.

"Ready to see the Statue of Liberty?" he shouted.

"Yep," Harry smiled as he wheeled down the short ramp in front of the building, the discomfort and exhaustion from a long day in an old building without regulated heating partly forgotten already. His crutches were stored in his trunk since he preferred traveling longer distances in his chair anyway and already now it prove to be a good choice.

The sun was starting to set and the train to New York could not go fast enough but finally they made it to New York Penn Station. Searching for the closest lift that would bring them to the underground Harry and Draco slowly wound their way through a thick crowd of people heading home from work, bumping into their luggage and Harry's wheelchair, apologizing profoundly for the latter, mostly ignoring the first. When they found a lift they were not the only ones who required the service of the rusty old and small cubicle and when they arrived at the terminal for the Staten Island ferries the sky outside had already changed colors from orange to grey.

Harry just did not manage to be bothered by that. His insides seemed to be filled with a warm happiness that was not influenced by such odds even though his vision already got blurry with tiredness and exhaustion. He stiffened when upon entering the waiting area to the ferries two policemen with large dogs approached him, but relaxed the instant he felt Draco's hand descend on his shoulder.

"They are checking your trunk for drugs," the blond murmured.

As it turned out they also checked the wheelchair for drugs and Harry watched the huge animals sniff at the wheels, their heads on the same level as Harry's who prayed his treacherous muscles stay still. Both examinations only took seconds before the dogs clearly indicated total lack of interest and Draco and Harry were waved through.

"We are lucky," Draco pointed out when they were entering the hall, advertisement rotating in screaming red letters around the walls, blinking and making Harry even dizzier. "The ferry leaves in only a few minutes".

As Draco had promised the large sliding doors opened not much later and they were swapped onto the ferry with a crowd of tired commuters and a few other tourists. The ferry took off with a shudder running through the whole ship shortly after they had found a place close to the windows. Unfortunately though, the outer deck was closed at night. Harry leaned his forehead against the cool glass and tried to block out the reflecting light from behind with his hands to get a good view at the outside. It took only a few minutes before he spotted the Statue of Liberty in the distance, the torch burning bright.

"Nice. What a pity we can't go outside and it's already getting dark," Draco at his side said, mimicking Harry's pose, squinting outside, too.

The journey to the islands went fast, luckily, because Harry barely managed to keep his eyes open as soon as the statue was out of side. The day seemed to go to an end as it had started: clearly not in his favor. Everyone had to exit upon landing and a helpful employee jumped in to help Harry push up the steep ramp. Harry and Draco simply circled back into the waiting area for the returning ferry and were leaving the island on the same boat minutes later.

On the way to the main hall inside the ship they came past a door at the front, leading to the deck outside, a rope indicating no trespassing. Draco briefly touched Harry's shoulder.

"Let us wait here," he whispered, stepping to the side and letting a family pass.

Harry arched an eyebrow at him but when Draco only grinned wordlessly, a mischievous glint in his eyes, he maneuvered the chair out of the way, closer to the forbidden doors. The stream of passengers searching for a seat ebbed away and soon they were the only ones, safe for a few people who passed them on the way to the other side of the ship.

"What?"

"Look out there," Draco replied.

Harry leaned over, trying to see through the glass window in the doors. In the distance he thought he could see some lights, murky behind the dusty glass.

"Seems we have to come back at daylight," Harry said, a little disappointed.

Draco's grin did not falter. "At daylight it's only half as impressive."

"Uh… maybe? But… well, the doors are closed, so…"

Draco raised one hand and gave the door a small shove. It swung back and forth a little before settling to rest again.

"Yeah, you know it still means it's forbidden to go outside?" Harry asked, grinning and shaking his head a little, pointing at the rope in front of them.

Draco shot a quick glance to the left and the right before pulling the lose rope up and, leading it over his head, back down behind him.

"It's all a matter of definition, isn't it? I define this side of the rope as the inside. So, problem solved, let's go."

With that he vanished behind the door. Harry was left in the corridor, shaking his head in disbelief, anxiously waiting for someone to shout at Draco to get inside again but nothing happened. A couple that had been kissing in one corner stopped mixing body fluids and watched them, the girl grinning and the boy rolling his eyes, trying to get her attention again.

Harry jumped when Draco's voice hissed from behind the doors. "Do you want to get caught standing 'outside'? Come on now, hurry up!"

Harry sighed and gripped the hand rims when Draco shoved open the door once more, holding the rope up for Harry to get through under it. Then the door closed behind both of them and a gush of cool air hit Harry's face. He wanted to say something, but when he looked up at Draco he saw also what was behind him.

"Woah!" He wheeled around Draco to the railing. In front of them, growing with every second they drew nearer, lay the huge glittering mass of Manhattan. Harry drew in his breath as he looked at the hundreds of twinkling skyscraper windows.

Draco had joined him, easily able to look over the railing. "Do you want me to…?"

But all exhaustion seemed suddenly swallowed by the sight in front of them and Harry flicked the breaks and pulled himself up into standing, balancing with his hands on the railing.

"I can see you have already fallen in love."

Harry hesitated for a split second and chuckled when he got Draco's meaning. "Yeah… how could anyone have known that so much glass and concrete looked that beautiful?"

Draco rested a hand in the small of Harry's back and they stood only a tiny distance apart, looking at the skyline in silence until Harry's legs threatened to give out again and he had to sit down. The swarm of butterflies in his stomach was still active as he watched up at Draco all the way back to Manhattan, unable to tear his gaze away from the eyes that sparkled with the reflection of the city lights.

Looking back, Harry did not remember much of their journey to the hostel. The subways seemed to move faster than before, the stations arriving and vanishing again in a thundering stream of colors, people squeezing past him on their way in and out. He tried to keep track of the stations but found it hard enough to remember the name of the station they were heading to. After having asked Draco twice about it he decided to keep his mouth shut before the amused expression of the other turned into a worried one. He tried to focus on his hands in his lap instead, fighting to keep the nausea at bay and his eyes open, until they finally, finally arrived.


	10. Chapter 10

Draco's head flew up the second Harry rounded the corner into the small cafeteria in the basement of the hostel. Harry would have liked to study Draco longer, letting his eyes wander over his strong hands cupping the coffee mug, the muscles playing underneath his much too thin shirt, the mildly annoyed gaze with which he observed the other people in the room from under his blond bangs. But the soft clicking sound of the crutches had given him away.

"Morning, sleepyhead!" Draco's eyes lightened up when they met Harry's and Harry felt a tug behind his navel that had nothing to do with hunger. Although he was starving.

"You slept like… 10 hours," Draco teased with a mocking glance on his watch.

Indeed, Harry had been surprised when he had woken up late in the completely dark double bedroom, needing a few seconds before it dawned on him where he was and what time it was. Moreover, he felt strangely rested, nothing compared to the devastated state he had been in yesterday evening. Upon thinking of that he shot a calculated glance to Draco, his guts clenching. He could not remember exactly how he had made it to bed and desperately hoped he had not made a total fool of himself. To his relief, Draco seemed to be as usual, his smile relaxed when Harry took the seat across from him.

"You look much better."

"Uh… yeah sorry, I was really tired." Carefully, Harry added. "Did… uh… anything happen, yesterday?"

"No. Should there be something?"

Harry shook his head, unclenching somewhat. "No… no."

"You kind of slept in the subway on our way to the hostel and I thought I would have to carry you to your bed but somehow you made it on your own."

"Hm…" Relief washed over Harry.

Draco jumped to his feet.

"We have breakfast coupons. You can choose between muffin or bagel and coffee or tea."

"Muffin and tea," Harry said as he sat down, stretching his legs under the table. "Thanks," he added to Draco's already turned back. The other only waved a hand as he approached the counter near the tables.

Harry's stomach growled at the sight of food and the muffin vanished faster than it could satisfy him.

"I'm going to get another one. Would you like one, too?" he asked Draco, pushing himself up with a hand on the small table.

"Uh… yeah, but I can…"

Harry's voice was calm but firm. "I got this. Chocolate or blueberries?" He grabbed his right crutch.

Draco settled back clearly reluctantly in the chair from which he had already halfway risen. "Blueberries?"

The counter was only a few steps away and Harry limped towards it just fine, leaning on his right crutch to support his weaker left leg and holding the tray with the muffins in his free left hand on the way back. When he arrived at the table Draco was smiling.

"What?" Harry pushed the tray towards Draco and let himself fall onto the chair again.

Draco grabbed one muffin from the tray. "Nothing. Thanks. So… what are you up to, today?"

"Oh, I would very much appreciate a full tourist program. I'm up to see whole New York in three days," Harry said. He knew what had been underlying Draco's question, however. "Probably I'd have to return to rely on wheels for that, again, though."

Draco grinned. "Good. I've been to New York a couple of times so I thought about…"

While Draco laid out his plan for the day for Harry, carefully checking that Harry approved of every single planned task, something so different from Martin's habit, Harry got lost in studying those full lips.

"Are you even listening?"

Harry had to slightly shake his head to focus. "Yeah, I am. Brooklyn Bridge, fine with me. And I'd like to have a map."

Draco chuckled. "What do you need a map for?"

"I don't like not knowing where I am," Harry said. It had been okay yesterday, he could not have read a map if he had wanted to, but today he would not depend on Draco to show him the way. At least he liked to know that in general he had the option to find his way back on his own.

Draco shrugged. "Fine, we get one at the reception."

Thus said, some time later, on their way out, Draco asked for a city map at the high counter of the reception. The young girl behind it grinned at him, nodded her head towards Harry sitting a few steps behind Draco and said: "Your friend's already in the shape to tour the city again?"

Draco opened and closed his mouth, clearly confused. "What-?"

The girl continued smirking and winked at Harry. "You know, it's not a shame to get wasted in New York, even already on the first day…"

Seeing that Draco bristled at her words, Harry wheeled closer and, putting his hand on the other's elbow, said "Yeah, whatever. Do you have a map now?"

The girl shrugged and, still grinning, leaned over the counter to hand him a sheet of paper showing most of Manhattan. Harry indicated Draco with a stern look to shut it and luckily the blond followed him out and onto the already bustling street.

"What the heck?" Draco seemed close to boiling point.

Harry gave the rims a strong push and widened his arms, shaking his head. "Is she the same who was here when we checked in yesterday?"

"Yeah… I guess."

"I must have left quite an impression, then." Harry's thumb rubbed over the metal moving under his palms, he did not meet Draco's gaze.

"But you weren't fucking drunk! What was that about?"

"It's not the first time people think that." Harry sighed, glancing up at Draco walking at his side with a gloomy expression. "I assume I was quite a wreck yesterday. Sometimes people misinterpret the slurred speech… and uncoordinated movements…"

Draco laughed hollowly. "But that's bullshit! Can't the bitch _see_...?"

They stopped at a street crossing and Harry angled the chair towards Draco. "She doesn't know. Most people have no clue. It's not their fault."

"It's not yours, either." Draco scowled at Harry.

"Leave it, okay?"

Draco's scowl deepened but finally he pushed his fists into the pockets of his coat and crossed the street. Harry let out a breath before following him.

Despite the early blow at the start the day turned into a wonderful one. The sun stayed out but a gusty wind from the sea kept temperatures low. They took a short walk through the Central Park, strolled down 5th Avenue, visited the Public Library and had a breathtaking view at Manhattan from the Top of the Rock, this time at daylight. Harry felt great most of the time, his left leg only acting up shortly when they had lunch at a fast-food place. He pressed down at the muscle with the heel of his hand until the spasm receded.

The dark settled over New York early again and it grew chilly outside.

"Do you want to go back to the hostel?" Draco asked out of breath when they had checked the last point on their tourist list and crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, which took forever because the sloping wooden planks on the walkway looked nice but were awful to maneuver with a wheelchair. They were both panting at the end.

Harry shook his head. "Nope, I know something much better." Martin had recommended an Asian rooftop restaurant with a splendid view and when Draco had used the restrooms earlier this day Harry had called and made a reservation for two.

He got a little pleasure from being the guide for once.

A concierge in a flawless black suit and white gloves greeted them when they arrived at the building, opening a side entrance for the wheelchair to fit through. Harry noticed the unusual silence while they traveled up in the lift. The lift stopped at the highest level and when Harry made to grab the hand rims to wheel through the opening, Draco hold him back at the shoulder.

"Harry… this place… it looks awfully expensive…"

Harry, who had winced at the unexpected touch, relaxed somewhat and tried not to smile at Draco's concern.

"It's moderate. Wait till you see the view…"

Draco still seemed hesitant, peeking out into the dimly lit interior of the restaurant.

"Please? You know that I am inviting you, right?"

"You know that I hate when you do?" But Draco could not hide a grin at the recurrence of the old argument. He fidgeted. "I'm not clothed appropriately."

"Neither am I. I promise they are not going to deny us exit. You are with me, remember..." He tapped his fingers on the rims.

Draco snorted. "You are handsome, buddy, but not _that_ handsome that you can pull everything off."

"I…" Harry started but then he perceived the glint in Draco's eyes. "Asshole." He pushed forward and Draco followed; the spot on Harry's shoulder where his hand had been still warm and tingling. Harry realized it could be a nice feeling, for once.

They were led to a small table directly in front of the large glass windows behind which Manhattan glittered and Draco let out an approving chuckle.

"Man, you had to be just lucky or pay a damn amount of money to get such a table." He indicated to the rest of the restaurant where not a single remaining seat was left free. All in all there were only a few tables at the windows.

Harry steered the wheelchair to the side of the table where a mindful waiter had already removed the chair and looked up at Draco, who was still standing. "I might have mentioned that I can't possibly get up the steps."

Draco scoffed as he realized that the tables in the second or third row were situated on higher levels to make it possible for customers sitting at those tables to catch a glimpse at the outside over the heads of the others.

Finally Draco sat down.

Harry ran his fingers along the edge of the table. "I hope whoever originally reserved this table has been here already plenty of times."

Draco looked oddly at him at that.

Harry could not take his eyes from the view outside, Draco already starting to mock him about it until the waiter arrived to take their orders. He barely looked at Harry and Harry would not have been surprised if he had asked Draco about his order, too.

"I will bring knife and fork for you, sir," he said to Harry before turning to go. Harry opened his mouth to protest but the waiter had already hurried off and Harry sank back in his chair, shrugging. He would have probably asked for knife and fork himself.

It took not a long time before the food arrived, duck for Draco and spicy fish for Harry. They ate in content silence for some time until Draco spoke.

"How can you stand this?"

Harry looked up from his plate, surprised.

Draco's eyes were dark; the hand holding the chopsticks was shaking. "Why are you not just pissed at everyone?"

Harry tried to laugh it off but the air was stuck in his throat. "What… what do you mean?"

"The cow at the hostel… honestly, how dumb can one be? And this guy here treats you like a little child. We've barely been around this city for one day and everyone just fucking stares… even here. But there you are, worrying about having maybe ruined some rich ass's evening."

Harry swallowed and laid down his fork. The fish was _really_ spicy. He brushed his hands over the white linen napkin on his lap before looking up and at Draco again. He feared he could not find a way around this argument.

"I… don't know."

Draco snorted at that and Harry raised a hand, silencing him before he could speak. "Look, it's not that I don't care at all. I want not to give a damn but I notice nevertheless. And sometimes it's annoying and sometimes it makes me so angry, I want to scream and break something. And sometimes it hurts… But I don't _blame_ people. Whatever might be the reason for their actions, they might just not know or not think hard enough or they feel insecure and overcompensate or they just have a bad day and honestly, I know how that one feels…"

Draco's features had grown soft but he still did not seem to be convinced. "That doesn't give them the right to hurt anyone. Someone should-"

" _If_ someone is doing anything, it's gonna be me," Harry interjected, voice sharp.

Draco huffed but did not say anything.

"Believe me, I have been there. It gets you nowhere. At some point you have to accept that people are idiots."

Draco chuckled humorlessly at that. "One day told me that much, yeah."

Harry fiddled with the base of his wine glass, filled with water, and looked around the restaurant. A few eyes turned away hastily when he caught them.

"I… I know that this…" Harry gestured towards himself, "makes people feel uncomfortable… and it's… it's no wonder." He forced himself to stop talking and his fingers fluttered on the table.

"I didn't know you were thinking that." Draco's voice was low, scratchy.

Harry did not look up at Draco anymore, dreading what he might see there. He had been much too open and regretted it the second the words were out. As a person with a disability you were not allowed to be not okay with your disability. You were fucking supposed to cope and be a cheery reminder for all the able-bodied out there that you can lead a perfectly happy life without a fully functioning body.

Draco shifted. "I... you don't make me uncomfortable. Well… you kind of make me feel _nervous_ , but that has nothing to do with your disability."

Unable to control it, a smile crept on Harry's lips and carefully he looked up into those eyes that caused his heart to race. He did not see pity in them, only affection and a trace of worry. Draco startled him by reaching across, taking one of his trembling hands in his own.

"This... is just a part of you, it belongs to you, but it's not entirely you. I... really like you and I think you are wonderful, with or without the disease. No one should get away with hurting you, out of whatever reason."

Harry thought he might fall apart just at that moment. He did not say anything because he was occupied with breathing for a few seconds. He sat there and squeezed Draco's hands, grounding himself in the warmth of the touch.

Then the waiter arrived and Draco jumped, releasing Harry's hand as if he had been burnt. When the waiter presented the wine to him, his hand crept back under the table to Harry's though and he hold on to it, careful at first, then with more reassurance.

"I... I like being with you, too," Harry said, clearing his voice when the waiter had vanished again. "That's why I guess things don't bother me right now. I'm just glad to be with you, I feel good, I don't want anything to ruin that."

"No one is going to ruin that," Draco said and his smile made Harry's heartbeat trip over itself again. Draco raised his glass. "Shall we toast to…"

"To spring," Harry said and carefully clinked his glass against Draco's. "And all idiots of this world." Draco laughed.

They sat facing the huge window for one more hour after they had finished eating, just enjoying the view mostly in silence. Harry noticed how naturally Draco fit in with the upper-class environment of the restaurant. He knew perfectly well how to deal with the snobbish waiter, he could pick out an excellent wine from the endlessly long wine list with dead-precision and as an argument broke out at the neighboring table, he chuckled lowly and told Harry under his breath that in his opinion the guy should slaughter stock as fast as possible.

"You are following the market?" Harry was surprised.

"Way of habit," Draco answered with a shrug.

Towards the end of the day the cramps returned, for short durations but with higher frequency. It had been a long day and sitting the whole time did not necessarily make things better. Harry hoped to be able to prolong their stay for some more time and rode out the first attacks without giving anything away but Draco called for the bill as soon as he caught Harry's face contorting slightly as the pain lashed out.

"So much for not treating me like a child," Harry groaned between gritted teeth, digging his fingers into the offending muscle.

"Who does not want to be treated like a child should start acting as a grown-up," Draco hissed while he reached for his purse.

Harry pushed Draco's hands away and got out his own purse, giving Draco a determined look. The other rolled his eyes but let Harry have his way. Harry covered the bill without batting an eye although it was a fair amount for him, too. Despite the fact that he could afford it, he did not usually spend a lot of money, with the exception of a few things. He had bought the Mercedes, because he needed something to get around which he could rely on, and he had rented a large wheelchair accommodating flat on ground level, including suitable furniture. Even after these substantial investments, most of his parents' money remained still untouched in his bank account.

The spasms lessened on their way back to the hostel and fully disappeared when he stretched on his bed not much later. At least he would sleep tonight. He could sense Draco in his bed on the other side of the dark room; hear the soft rustle of the covers when he turned. They had not talked much on their way back, both occupied with their own stubbornness.

"Are you okay now?" Draco's voice was muffled; probably he was facing the wall.

"Hm… yeah I'm fine."

Draco turned towards him, sheets rustling. "I'm sorry for forcing you to leave."

"It was the right thing to do. I knew but I… I didn't want it to end so soon."

"It's not the end."

Harry stilled, listening for Draco's breathing.

Draco turned away again, speaking towards the wall: "Tomorrow is another day. And we have ten days ahead of us."

"Hm…" Harry felt weirdly relieved and disappointed at once. His heart beat was loud in the silence of the night. He feared Draco might hear it from the other end of the room. "It will be cool, going up along the East Coast again."

They planned to take the same route Harry and his co-workers had taken one year ago. Only this time there would be no one else traveling with them.

"Night," Draco's voice was sleepy.

"Good night." Harry thought it would be impossible for him to sleep now but slipped away into nothingness only minutes later.


	11. Chapter 11

When Harry surfaced from sleep, horribly disoriented, he needed a few seconds before realizing what had woken him up. There was no pain in his legs or his arms, no suffocating constriction in his chest, he was neither freezing nor boiling under his blankets, the still dark room did not spin around itself and he had not had a nightmare. Indeed, nothing was wrong and the unusualness of the event was the only reason why he did not close his eyes and drift back to sleep at once. Instead, he sat up on his elbow and looked over to Draco's bed. He needed a few blinks before his sleep drugged brain registered what had in fact woken him.

Draco was not asleep anymore. He was sitting upright in his bed, naked except for his boxers as always when in bed, his hair disheveled and his mobile phone pressed to his ear, and listened intently to someone at the other end. The ghostly light of the phone illuminated one side of his face, casting deep shadows around his nose and chin. Harry just wanted to sink back into his pillow, not wanting to intrude on something private, when he saw the traces of silent tears on Draco's cheeks. At first he was not sure what to do, pretending to be asleep was out of question and before he could think of the consequences, he had scooted to the edge of the bed and, not bothering with the wheelchair that was placed at the other end of it, crossed the small room towards Draco's bed on unsteady legs.

Draco flinched and let out a muffled sob when Harry joined him on the mattress, less gentle then intended, more falling down on it then actually sitting next to Draco. Apart from that Draco did not give a sign that he acknowledged Harry's presence at all. Harry remained where he was, unmoving, watching Draco continue listening into his phone, tears glistening on his cheeks while he stared across the room into the darkness. Harry was too afraid to move closer, crossing a boundary he should not. Maybe even coming over had been a bad idea in the first place. Well, there was no going back now.

Then Draco nodded his head and, remembering he could not be seen by whoever he was talking to, said: "Okay, I understand. Thank you," with a surprisingly steady voice before ending the call and lowering the phone, staring at it.

"What…" Harry cleared his voice, "what happened?"

Draco looked up at him at that, his cheeks hollow in the light from the phone on his lap, his eyes looking through him.

"My mother…" and then Draco started to sob in earnest and Harry, having never seen the other as devastated, as vulnerable as right then, did not know what else to do then awkwardly move closer and put Draco in a hesitant embrace. Completely at a loss of anything to say, he moved his hand in small soothing circles on Draco's back. At first Draco stiffened under his touch but then he leaned into it, wrapping his arms tightly around Harry's torso, his shaking body pressed against Harry.

It took a great amount of time for Draco to calm down while Harry patted his bare back and held him, slightly rocking him. But eventually his sobbing ceased and his breathing evened out. The blond sagged against Harry and buried his face in his chest.

"I'm sorry," Draco hiccoughed. "Your pajama is all soaked now."

Harry chuckled lowly and stopped moving his hand up and down Draco's back. "Don't worry about that." He tried to adjust his position a little, his arms and back having started to scream at him. His legs felt like inhabited by a whole ant colony, the sensation unnerving and bordering on painful. They would be no use for at least half an hour.

"What happened?" He whispered into Draco's hair, getting slightly dizzy from the scent of it.

"My mother has cancer." Draco said, his voice sounding hollow. "I knew. I… I've known for some time now," he added, when Harry involuntarily intensified his hold around him. Draco shuddered as he breathed in and out. "The father of a friend of mine just called me. He works at the hospital where… where she is treated. Chemo and stuff. She was okay, considering… I… we phoned only a few weeks ago. She was at home over the weekend and she sounded… so confident. I thought she would get better. And now… he told me… she's worse. They are going to operate now."

Draco stopped talking and Harry started tracing the circles on his back again. There was silence for some time. Then Draco shifted, extracting himself from Harry's arms.

"I don't know what to do," he said, staring through Harry unseeing, eyes wide and panicked. He suddenly jumped up from the bed and started pacing the dark room.

"I… I need to get there. But… but… it's impossible." He stopped in one corner of the room, ran a hand through his hair and turned abruptly, resuming his restless walking.

Harry narrowed his eyes. "Why is it impossible? Draco…" He desperately wanted to catch him by his wrist, pull him towards the bed again and hold him tight again until he had calmed down. But he was out of reach, just a few feet from the bed while Harry did not trust his tingling legs to take his weight. Harry was starting to get panicked, too, seeing the blond, who had always been so self-assured, fall to pieces in front of him.

"I… It's… Do you know how many years it's been? I… I cannot pay for the ticket to LA and besides… _he_ will be there and… I don't know what to do. I can't go home." Draco had stopped, his arms dangling at his side.

Harry scooted to the edge of the mattress and extended a hand towards Draco, trying not to overbalance. "Of course you are going home. It's your mother." He was surprised by how calm his voice sounded. "Now give me your phone, I'll get a plane ticket for you. Don't worry about the money."

Draco hesitated. Then he made a step towards Harry, slowly as if sleep-walking. Harry gently pried Draco's mobile phone from his fingers and held onto his hand instead. "There you go. Thank you. Do you want to come under the blanket? You are shivering."

Draco's whole body was indeed shaking and his teeth clattered loudly. Similarly will-less he plopped down beside Harry and Harry wrapped the blanket around him. "I… I cannot…" he whispered. "…cannot accept this."

"Sure you can. You are taking the next plane to Los Angeles," Harry said resolutely, trying to open the browser on the small device to search for plane rides, cursing under his breath at the small display, much smaller than his own, with symbols too tiny for his clumsy fingers.

Draco nodded and then shook his head. "Y-yes. N-n-no. Argh…"

"What now?"

Draco looked out of the heap of blankets, blinking at Harry, biting his lower lip. "Would you come with me?" he breathed, nearly inaudible.

Harry stared at him, accidentally opening a few more browser windows than intended while he was not looking at the screen. "If you… if you want me there. Of course. But I would understand… you know. It's a family thing…" Maybe he had never really known a family, but that much seemed clear to Harry.

Draco shook his head, long hair flying. "Great family," he murmured. "Please?" His eyes were desperate, pleading.

Harry nodded. "O-okay." He browsed through the results for his flight request, trying to focus. "The next plane leaves in… two hours. It will take roughly six hours. That means we will be there at 9 am, considering time shift."

Harry's night-stiff fingers seemed to wake up a little as he started to type in the passengers' information. He paused and looked at Draco. "What are you waiting for? Time for packing!"

Draco jumped up at that as if electrified and started hurrying around the room, snatching his clothes from where he had distributed them all over the room.

"Throw my stuff in my trunk, too, please. Okay?" Harry switched on the reading light at the head of Draco's bed to light up the room. "Don't bother with packing it neatly." In contrast to Draco, Harry kept his clothing next to his bed, folded down and organized in small heaps.

Draco stopped then nodded. "Thank you," he said. He was standing in the middle of the room, looking as tiny and lost as Harry had never seen him. His heart broke at the sight and he had given everything to be able to go and hug him.

"No big deal," Harry mumbled instead, turning his attention back to the phone.

Fifteen minutes later Harry had booked them two seats on the mentioned plane and Draco had managed to gather all their stuff and throw it inside Harry's trunk or wrench it inside his backpack. He seemed to have calmed down a little over doing something.

"Uh…," he said, standing in front of Harry with Harry's hygienic bag in his hands after he had cleared their stuff from the bathroom. "I guess you should take your meds. Before… before I put that in your trunk, too."

Harry nodded, his cheeks flushing pink and at the same time he felt angry about the reaction. He snatched the bag out of Draco's hands and did not meet his eyes, embarrassed on several levels. A part of him however marveled about the fact that Draco knew his routines, knew where he kept his meds and when he took them.

"I'd need a glass of water. And my chair." It had come out much ruder than intended but Draco turned on his heels and complied at once.

They were heading out only minutes later, throwing their keys on the counter in front of the girl they knew from yesterday. She looked at them bewildered as they hurried out of the front doors, Harry again in his wheelchair, Draco with his huge backpack and pulling Harry's trunk.

The hasty journey through Manhattan felt weirdly similar to the first evening after their arrival. Although that had been not even two full days ago, it felt like ages. Now however they sped in a taxi Harry had called through streets that were only slightly less crowded than during the day. Draco sat next to him and had grabbed Harry's knee apparently without noticing it. The blond stared out of the window as if silently willing the cars to move faster.

Harry let out a small sigh of relief when they finally arrived at the airport and got rid of their luggage in the last minutes before the drop-off counter closed. Only when his trunk turned around the corner on the conveyor band did Harry realize that first, he had not taken his emergency meds with him in his small backpack and second, he had forgotten to reserve a wheelchair. The latter should be no problem, generally, and the first probably would be neither. Wouldn't it?

They lined up in the queue for security check-up, Harry on crutches again. They had asked for a transport wheelchair at check-in but waiting for it would mean losing valuable time. Harry had tried negotiating to take his own wheelchair on board or at least to the gate, which was possible in some cases, not however on such short notice prior to boarding as he was informed.

The line was moderately long and everything went smoothly until a commotion broke out somewhere at the front of the line. Security personnel jogged past them, talking fast in their walkie-talkies. Someone in a uniform informed everyone in a harsh tone to stay where they were and not to move. Harry craned an eyebrow at Draco who slightly shrugged. The whole queue had fallen silent and for a few excruciating minutes no one moved a single hand. But after some time, the tension seemed to seep away as nothing happened and murmurs were audible.

"False alarm," the middle-aged woman in front of them muttered and stood on tiptoes to see what was happening.

It seemed to take forever until the queue continued moving again.

"Harry…" Draco said, his voice thick. "We won't make it."

Indeed, the queue seemed to move slower after whatever had happened and although they had done what they could, it had been a tight call from the beginning. There certainly was no room for a false bomb alarm or anything of that kind. Moreover, not having had a decent shower to loosen his muscles, breakfast to get his system up and standing in line for a while was getting back at Harry now. He could practically feel his leg muscles getting ready for a nasty cramp. He shifted a little and tried to take more weight on his already straining arms, sweat forming on his forehead. He caught Draco's worried look and just wanted to cover up his struggle when he got an idea.

"Draco…" he indicated the other to step closer with a nod of his head. "I… think it's time to play the disabled card," he whispered.

Draco looked at him blankly.

"Well…" Harry inhaled deeply, steeling himself, and took a step forward, towards the lady in front of them. "Uh… madam? Sorry, uh… I wanted to ask if maybe my friend and I could get in front of you in the line. There was a problem with the transport wheelchairs and now… I'm really sorry, it's just I don't think I can stand upright any longer."

It was not even a lie, specifically, not all of it at least. As the woman turned and her gaze swept across his crutches and legs, Harry felt his face heat up in embarrassment. He hated asking for help. The look in the woman's face however turned from slightly annoyed to kind in seconds. The pity that mingled there, too, stung but the small ghost of a hopeful smile Draco managed as they moved past the woman one position further up the line was worth all the humiliation in the world.

"That was awesome," Draco hissed into Harry's ear, causing a tingling to run through his body. "My turn." And he tapped the shoulder of a man clad in a black suit who was now in front of them, plastering a gorgeous smile on his face, white teeth flashing. "Excuse me, sir. My friend and I encountered a problem with the wheelchair service at the airport-"

Harry remembered he should not be grinning like mad as he listened to Draco explain their story to the busy looking man. Draco was very good at that. His natural charm and Harry's crutches brought them quickly up the line, one position after the other. Harry could hardly believe it worked that well, even after his own first success.

Oddly enough, not once did someone make way grudgingly or hesitantly. When Harry moved past, leaning heavily on his crutches, and actually dared to meet someone's eye, he always was greeted with a smile and good-wishing nods. Harry felt strangely moved by it, the warmth that spread in his stomach conquering the heat on his cheeks.

When they could finally see to the front of the queue Harry begged Draco with a jerk of his head to come closer.

"This will go even faster from here," he whispered.

Harry was glad to see that the blond looked calmer by now. There was still tension in his shoulders, in the way he stood and he was even paler then usually, but the haunted look had nearly vanished from his eyes.

Harry shifted his weight and lifted his left arm high enough to wave at one of the security officers nearby. A young officer their age caught the movement and approached them.

"Excuse me, Miss, I'm afraid it's not possible for me to do the full body scan unsupported. My PCA and I would need a manual security procedure, if it's not too much of an inconvenience."

The woman's smile was genuine and she nodded. "Of course. Through here. I will send someone to tend to you as soon as possible." She unhooked one side of the band that marked the place for the queue and waited for them to go through, already speaking into her walkie-talkie.

Draco shot Harry an incredulous look, mouthing 'PCA?' as Harry crutched past.

They followed the security officer to a small niche at the side with a bench and Harry let himself down on the welcoming surface, barely suppressing a groan. He shrugged at Draco as soon as the officer had left. "Well, you could be…," he murmured, grimacing as he rubbed his thigh.

Draco shook his head when another security officer approached. The burly man closed the curtain for privacy. It sheltered most of the part around the bench from views from outside. He put on blue plastic gloves that uncomfortably remembered Harry of hospital, and turned to them. "Okay, who is going to be first?"


	12. Chapter 12

They made it to the gate, but barely. There was no spare time for Harry to get on board before everyone else and so he had to move with the stream of passengers, trying to ignore the side-glances he received when they hurried past him. It was worse on the plane itself, where he had to move carefully not to trip over his own feet or his crutches in the narrow aisle and people grew impatient at the slow progress. He heard an annoyed voice shouting from the back why the queue did not move and someone else not very helpfully yelling back that everyone should shut up because there was this disabled guy and he needed more time. Harry's stomach clenched and warmth crept into his face again. He tried to tune out the murmuring and looked over the pitying glances from already sitting passengers as he stumbled past.

Finally they arrived at their row without any more incidents. Luckily, Harry had managed to reserve two seats directly at the aisle. There had not been much space left when Harry had booked and he was glad he did not have to work his way over several seats towards his own one. Usually he preferred a window seat when there were only two seats in one row, just because of the view. But of course he had other worries right now.

Draco settled down first and Harry squeezed in the aisle seat next to him, moving the crutches inside, glad to be out of the way. Draco at his side was fidgety and scowling, Harry could sense he was seething under the surface.

"Hey…" Harry soothed and hesitantly put a hand over Draco's that grabbed the armrest, knuckles white. "Everything's going to be okay. We managed it in time."

Draco huffed and angrily rolled his eyes but did not remove his hand. "Nothing is okay. They are all idiots…"

Harry squeezed his hand. "We had that already yesterday, remember? I don't care, Draco. All I care right now is getting us to LA and to your mother. Everything else is not important."

Draco inhaled shakily and nodded. "Yeah… Yeah… you are right. I'm stupid, I'm sorry. I guess… I need some time to get used to… that."

"You are not stupid," Harry said firmly and reluctantly released his hold on his hand to collapse his crutches and store them under the front seat together with his small backpack. Calming down Draco had also helped him relax more. Everyone else seemed to be seated, too, and they fastened their seatbelt when a flight attendant closed the storing compartments above their heads.

Take-off was smooth and after a few minutes the lights for keeping seated went out.

Harry got only a second of warning.

"Shit!"

"What's wrong?" Draco's voice was alarmed.

"I... think-" Harry doubled over from the pain shooting up both of his legs.

"What is it?! Harry?" Draco swooped down to him, one hand touching his back, the warmth crackling like electricity on Harry's skin. "Cramps? Harry... tell me what to do. What can I do?"

Harry gritted his teeth and leaned back again, his legs trembling, locked in position. They had remembered at last how badly Harry had treated them all morning. He could barely move in the narrow seat, least stretch them out. "Need... sugar," he forced himself to say through ragged breathing. If he had his medication with him he could have taken something against the pain at least. But as it was, getting his blood sugar up was his best shot. It was a long one, though. He remembered his doctor mentioning that low blood sugar could make him more prone to cramps. He had not said anything about deflecting them.

"Wha- oh, okay, Harry, wait a second, okay?" Draco jabbed at the button for calling a flight assistant. Harry had always wondered if these buttons actually worked or were just there for decoration and to make passengers feel safe. Well, he would find out, if not in a way that pleased him.

"Hey, hello? We have an emergency over here!"

Harry would have groaned if he could have opened his mouth without screaming as Draco yelled through the plane. He closed his eyes, tried to shut everything out and breathe through the pain. The tremor in his legs seemed to ease a bit.

"Daddy... is the man sick?" Harry heard a child voice ask, distracting him from his torment.

"Some people get sick from flying," a male voice responded, sounding slightly strained.

"Is he going to puke like mum last time?"

"Maybe, honey. Now watch your movie, will you?"

His leg muscles took a break and Harry slumped forward, leaning his forehead against the vibrating plastic covering the back of the seat in front of him.

"Sir, how can I help you?"

"We need a glass of coke. No! Orange juice!" Draco's voice to his left was sharp. "Right now!"

The flight assistant vanished in haste and Harry's lips escaped a whimper as his body started to quiver again. He felt Draco's hands on his back, tracing the same pattern Harry had done this morning.

"It's going to be okay, Harry, everything's going to be okay." Draco's voice was low but steady and Harry squeezed his eyes shut again and tried to concentrate on the warmth of the hand on his back, on the fingers caressing him through the fabric of his shirt. After a few agonizing moments he finally felt something relaxing inside of him. He fell back against the support of the seat, panting. The muscles in his legs were still rigid and strained but the pain had definitely lessened now.

"Do you want to have my bag?"

Harry half turned his head towards the aisle, looking down at a small girl, handing her puking bag to him.

"N-no... I'm okay. Thanks," he rasped, trying a shaking smile and embarrassed wiped sweat from his forehead.

"My mum also gets sick on planes." The girl looked at him expectantly with huge brown eyes, fiddling with the hem of her pink shirt with her free hand.

"Ah... o-okay."

"Mary, come here. This instant!" A hand reached from the row across the aisle, pulling the girl away. The man did not even look at Harry.

"Orange juice, sir."

Harry righted himself, taking the plastic cup in his unsteady hands. "Thank you." He gulped down the sweet liquid before another attack would make it impossible to drink anything.

"How do you feel?"

"D-don't know... Better, I guess. I'm sorry."

Draco took the empty cup from him and Harry reached down to arrange his feet that they were straightening out more into the aisle.

"How is this possible? You took your meds, didn't you?"

Harry shrugged and let himself fall back into the seat. "Yeah... happens. I-I'm stupid. Didn't take any meds with me here. Sorry." He barely managed to squeeze the words out as fatigue claimed him. It seemed the cramps had stopped for now.

"Stop apologizing. You were awesome. We would not be here without you." Draco nestled closer to Harry and Harry's head slipped onto his shoulder.

"Thank you for coming with me." Draco's whispered words were the last Harry heard before he fell asleep.

Harry woke as a voice announced landing over the speakers. He blinked, the light in the plane painfully bright.

"How are you?"

Harry could tell that Draco tried to ban the concern from his voice but failed.

"Uh..." Harry quickly took stock. His back ached, if from spasms or sleeping in the plane seat he could not say. His legs felts weak, as if the pain had left a void when it receded and the muscles were still stiff. But they did not feel like cramping anytime soon. "Better," he answered to the blond.

Draco looked wide awake, as if he had not slept a second. "I... uh... asked for wheelchair transport upon arrival."

Harry nodded. "Thanks."

"Please bring your seat in an upright position," a flight attendant said as she walked past them. Harry scrambled in a more sitting position and readjusted the back of his seat.

After landing, Harry remained seated, adamant not to let the situation from boarding repeat itself.

"Are you not leaving with us?"

The girl from before was standing to the right of him, hugging a plush toad, sucking at a knuckle in her mouth.

"I am. I just wait until everyone else has left."

"Why?"

"Because... uh..." Harry did not know how he should explain it to the little girl.

"He does not want anyone to get lost, you know," Draco said over Harry's shoulder. Harry turned to him, surprised.

"Hmmm..." The girl frowned at Draco.

"Yeah..." Draco lowered his voice and the girl stepped closer, plush animal brushing Harry's fingers.

"You know, he is some kind of superhero. He takes care of the plane and that no one is left behind. Then he leaves on his superhero vehicle."

The girl's mouth hung open. Harry suppressed a grin and nodded solemnly. "Promise not to tell anyone?"

She nodded, then startled when a voice boomed over their heads.

"Mary!"

Apparently the girl's father had appeared, fleshy neck flushed from pulling a trunk out of the stuffed overhead departments and seemingly angry. He grabbed the girl's arm and pushed her forward. "Come on now, you are keeping everyone up."

Indeed the aisle was already packed with people hastily standing up and grabbing their luggage, shoving behind the others to get out as fast as possible. Harry did not even see the girl's whip of hair anymore; she instantly vanished amidst the sea of people. He leaned back again, watching the people stream past until nearly everyone had left the plane.

"Sir? Are you ready?"

Harry looked up at the flight attendant standing next to him in the corridor and the white slim chair the man presented without understanding.

"You ordered an aisle wheelchair, sir, is that right?"

Harry laughed surprised as everything came clear to him. "Of course… I mean, no, I didn-"

"I did," Draco said.

Harry whirled around to him. "What?!"

Draco raised his hands defensively. "I'm sorry, Harry. I didn't know… I didn't want to wake you up to ask if you maybe needed one. So…" He looked at Harry apologetically.

Harry sighed.

"I still think it is a good idea, Harry," Draco's voice had gained a pleading edge. "Just... give it a try, okay? I take your stuff and you can give your legs a rest."

It was sweet on one hand how Draco cared for him but on the other… Harry had principles. He had never needed an aisle wheelchair and he did not intend to start requiring one anytime soon. Although… his legs felt indeed shaky and despite the fact that he had gained some rest sleeping on the plane, he knew he should not overdo it.

"Fine, fine," Harry murmured, throwing the flight attendant who stood by, gaze flickering anxious from Draco to Harry, an annoyed look. "Just because it's already here... What do I have to do?"

The flight attendant lowered the armrest on Harry's side. "Do you need help with the transfer?"

"Nope." Harry put one hand on the flat surface of the wheelchair seat and grabbed the backrest of the seat in front of him, leveling his body up and over the small gap, letting himself down on the wheelchair safely.

The flight attendant bent over him, buckling Harry quickly in. "Do you feel safe, sir? Please give notice as soon you start sliding out."

Harry grunted and waved a hand. The aisle wheelchair was narrow indeed, without arm rests or cushions to keep him into position and when the flight attendant started pushing forward Harry could imagine very well that someone with less trunk stability than him could feel uncomfortable. He had no such problems though. In contrast, as they rounded the corner to the exit he spotted something lying on the floor close to the wall separating the passenger's space from the toilet cabins. When they passed it he bent down and plugged it from the floor, provoking a gasp from the flight attendant pushing him.

"A- are you alright?" The man had stopped dead and came around to kneel in front of Harry.

"Yep," Harry answered shortly, tugging at a leg of the plush toad in his hands.

"Oh… okay," the flight attendant swallowed and returned to stand behind Harry and push him to the exit.

After swapping the aisle wheelchair with a transport wheelchair, Draco and Harry went to the baggage claim. As it turned out, they need not have hurried, the first suitcases were just arriving when they turned the corner. Draco waited for their luggage while Harry wheeled around, looking for a certain girl in a pink shirt. He finally found her sitting on an empty luggage cart, one finger in her mouth, her eyes unmistakably swollen from angry tears. She looked up when Harry rolled in her field of view and spotted her plush toad immediately.

"Trevor!"

She jumped down the cart and ran towards Harry, plugging the animal from his outstretched hands, cradling it to her chest.

"Trevor! I thought you were lost!" She beamed at the toad.

Harry grinned. "We told you we would not let anyone get lost on the plane, didn't we?"

The girl looked up at him happily. "Trevor gets lost very often," she stated, scolding the animal.

"You should watch out for him better, then," Harry said.

The girl nodded, stuck a knuckle in her mouth again while she contemplated him in silence. Then she pointed at Harry's wheelchair. "Is this your superhero vehicle?"

"Wha- oh… yeah… it is." Harry patted the bulky armrests of the transport wheelchair.

"Can I try it, too?"

"Nah, it's only for superheroes," a voice behind them said. Draco had arrived, with their luggage and Harry's own wheelchair.

"Do you also have one?" The girl asked Draco with big eyes but before he could answer, the father of the small girl had returned, suitcases in both his hands.

"Mary!" he bellowed. The girl did not seem scared this time, she ran towards him, waving her toad.

"Daddy, daddy, look what the nice men gave to me! He found Trevor!"

The man's eyes swept over Harry and Draco, stopping short at the two wheelchairs for a fraction of a second.

"Thank you," he said gruffly, lifting the suitcases on the luggage cart, avoiding Harry's gaze. "Mary, come here. We need to go now."

"Trevor wants to say goodbye," the girl said and ignoring the tense sigh of her father she turned to Harry and Draco. Harry had just transferred to his own wheelchair, smiling happily at the familiar shape and comfortable seat, spinning the wheels to see it react fluidly and without effort.

He turned towards the girl. "Goodbye, Trevor. May you have a mighty long life full of happiness and adventures," he solemnly said, earning a chuckle from Draco, and shook the plush leg of the toad the girl offered him.

Draco bowed a little before shaking the leg, too, his eyes sparkling as they met Harry's.

The girl and her father walked towards the exit together, the father's stride quick and tense, the girl jumping every other step and looking back at them once in a while, waving her toad. Draco and Harry waved back.

"Sweet kid."

"Idiot father."

Harry looked at Draco sternly.

"Yeah… yeah… I know!"

Draco's laugh was like a warm blanket.


	13. Chapter 13

Draco turned to Harry as they stood in the end of the line to the exit, phone in hand. "I just got a text."

His expression was unreadable and Harry' stomach knotted.

Draco's lips quivered, then, hesitantly, curved into a small smile like sun peaking behind the clouds. "The procedure went well. She is still asleep but everything seems okay so far. They cannot say more at this point but… she's made it, I guess."

Something unclenched in Harry's stomach and he grinned up at Draco.

They waited in front of the airport building for a cab to bring them and their luggage as well as the wheelchair to the hospital. Draco had not relaxed fully, yet, but the panicked look had completely left his eyes. He stood at the edge of the curb, gaze going over the arriving and waiting cars for the cab they had ordered. Thankfully it arrived after ten minutes waiting in the heat. A few minutes longer and Harry would have considered retreating into the acclimatized interior.

The hospital greeted them with the - to Harry - familiar buzzing of people, sharp smells and hushed noises. They were quickly channeled to the ICU where Draco was allowed to proceed to the patient's room while Harry had to wait outside in the corridor. Despite the air-conditioning he started to feel the onset of fatigue. His vision had gone slightly blurred and would get worse whenever he moved his head fast, and his stomach was queasy. After an hour of waiting, he had dozed off slumped in his chair, only dimly registering his surroundings. Draco had come out once to tell him to go to their hotel but Harry had refused to leave him. Draco's mother had still not woken up.

Another hour later, Harry startled and his head flew up when a figure rushed past, a black silken cloak brushing his knees. The tall man with the white blond hair did not seem to notice him, had not even registered that he had nearly bumped right into him before he vanished behind the door to the room where Draco was in. Harry adjusted himself in the wheelchair, scowling at how it seemed to melt with him into the hospital's surrounding, as if a guy in a wheelchair belonged here.

Only seconds later the same door sprang open, banging against the wall and Draco emerged.

"Coffee," was all he growled before he stormed past Harry, his expression concealed by a curtain of blond hair.

Harry closed up with Draco after a few long, powerful strokes, the chair accelerating effortlessly on the sleek ground. Neither spoke until they reached the sterile surrounding of the cafeteria, deserted at this time before official visiting hours, the counters closed. Harry drew coffee for Draco and tea for himself at the vending machine because Draco's hands were too shaky to insert the coins. He carried the cups wedged between his thighs to a table in the corner and placed Draco's cup in front of the blond. Draco was staring straight ahead, digging his nails into the skin of his hands.

"Your father?"

The tea tasted bitter but Harry did not want to go back and get sugar.

Draco's head snapped up, his eyes were dull and tired. He looked down at his cup and then at his hands, unclenching them and wrapping them around the Styrofoam. "Hmm..."

They drank in silence, the sun streaming through the huge glass windows, heating up the interior with every passing minute.

Draco sensed Harry's growing discomfort. "You should go to the hotel."

They had booked a double room from the taxi. Harry wanted to shake his head because he did not like the idea of Draco staying at the hospital alone while he was in this mental condition but Draco's firm gaze and a sudden onset of painful spasms in his left hand kept him in check.

Draco had not missed it. "It will be okay, Harry. I will wait for her to wake up. It might still take hours."

Harry kneaded his left wrist. "How is she?"

Draco shrugged and sighed. "The doctor said they apparently fully removed the cancer. No complications. We have to wait and see..."

Harry knew what that meant. Even when everything went well, having a part of your brain removed did not necessarily mean that everything was all right afterwards.

In the end Harry relented and called a cab which brought him and his trunk to the hotel while Draco returned back to the ICU. The hotel in the heart of Los Angeles bore a glittering glass front and golden ornaments around the windows. The entrance to the wide entry doors was laid out with a red carpet, concierges waiting in their neat uniforms, hands clasped behind their straight backs. Harry feared that Draco would not approve but on such a short notice in a city like this no less expensive accommodation with accessible rooms had been available.

The cab was swarmed by uniformed men and Harry's trunk pulled out of the car even before it came to a full stop. The wheelchair's parts were inspected by three men at once and he had to call to them to bring it close to the door and assembled it himself before transferring.

In their room, the first thing he did was pitch up the air conditioning even more, to the confusion of the concierge who arrived with his trunk at that moment, looking from the empty wheelchair to Harry who stood leaning on the wall next to the control panel.

"Uh... your trunk, sir."

Harry retrieved one of the crumpled up bills from his pocket and shifted his weight with one hand on the wall to hand it to the man who scratched his balding head, took the bill and disappeared with a hurried thanks. Harry smirked, pivoted and let himself fall in the wheelchair that creaked in protest. Harry decided to try the bed for a quick nap. Maybe when his vision had improved he could try and get some work done, now that he had nothing else to do.

There was no sign of Draco until the afternoon. In the end, Harry ate dinner in the hotel's restaurant alone, swarmed by waiters who wanted to tend to his needs. Late in the evening he fell asleep on the couch, his laptop next to him and woke in the middle of the night, stiff and hurting from the position, to drag himself into the huge double bed. Sometime in the morning hours, the sun had just started to rise behind the heavy curtains, a faint glow illuminating the room, he woke up to the mattress dipping and a body slipping under the covers next to him. Harry squirmed closer to where the height radiated from Draco's body in the chilled room and loosely slung an arm around the other's broad chest. He could feel it rise up and down with each breath and Draco slowly relaxing into him.

They had not shared a bed before, Harry realized. Draco had slept on the sofa while he lived in Harry's apartment, as if anything else was out of question. But Harry was too sleepy and too comfortable to address the thought further. He attempted to ask if there were news about Draco's mother but all he managed was a sleepy mumble.

Draco squeezed his hand. "She's okay, I think. She woke up briefly and they took her to do some tests." His voice was tired but even.

Harry nodded into Draco's back, squeezed his hand in return and fell asleep again.

When he woke shortly before midday, the bedside next to him was empty again. After a few hours of work, when there had been no sign of Draco and Harry's phone calls had been left unanswered, Harry decided to bring take-away lunch to the hospital. Draco must be starving by now, he had not eaten since the day before yesterday.

Harry managed to get to the ICU without being bothered and when the corridor appeared empty, he decided to use his apparent cover to his advantage. When Harry shouldered open the glass door to the hospital room - after sleeping long and cooling down in a room close to refrigerator temperature he had felt up to abandon the wheelchair - he saw that Draco was still there, asleep on a chair next to the hospital bed, his head placed in his arms folded on the armrest. Draco's mother was asleep as well, her face above the white sheets pale, her cheeks hollow and her skin papery from sickness and age, her white hair flowing over her shoulders in disarray. The line around her soft lips and the curve of her sharp cheekbones made her look handsome nevertheless and Harry thought he knew now where Draco got his looks from.

Harry silently angled another chair closer with one crutch and let himself down. He placed his backpack with the food on the floor and leaned the crutches against it. He debated waking Draco up for eating but decided against it since the blond seemed to be in dire need of sleep right now. He sat and watched the two Malfoys sleep, while the machines beeped in a steady rhythm.

Harry was close to falling asleep as well when he realized that Mrs. Malfoy had woken up. She was staring calmly at him with big blue eyes. She let them trail over her sleeping son next to Harry before closing them again. Harry suspected she had fallen asleep again when she suddenly spoke, softly, barely audible over the low noise of the machines. "You are Harry."

Harry froze, nodded, then added in a whisper equaling hers. "Yes, ma'am," although it had not been a question.

She shook her head minutely without opening her eyes. "I am glad you are here for him."

Harry frowned and wondered what she meant, but the steady rise and fall of the chest under the blankets indicated that this time Mrs. Malfoy had indeed fallen asleep again. He looked to Draco, who stirred.

"Harry? What are you doing here?" The dark rings under Draco's eyes stood in stark contrast to his pale skin.

"I brought you something to eat. I know out of experience that hospital food is only for those too weak to protest against it."

Draco chuckled tiredly.

"We better go to the cafeteria, though. Let your mother sleep."

Draco nodded and took the backpack before Harry could. They quietly left the room and proceeded down the corridor to the lift bringing them to the cafeteria.

Draco seemed to gain strength as he ate. "She woke up a few times," he said between bites, wiping his lips with a paper napkin. "Doctors say she is going to recover fully, probably no lasting damage." The relief was palpable on his face.

Harry felt relieved, too. These were awesome news, definitely.

"She said we should move to the house at the seaside. My parents' house." Draco looked up at Harry tentatively. "Will be cheaper and it has air conditioning, too." When Harry did not say anything, he went on. "I don't know what your plans are... I would like to stay close until she is better…." He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "I am sorry that I dragged you here. I know that you don't… handle the heat well. I... won't hold it against you if you'd like to fly back as soon as possible."

"I... no, I don't care as long as there is air conditioning, you know." Harry brushed away the lie like he removed the crumbs on the table with the napkin. He knew it would be strenuous, every time he went outside even for a brief time in this heat, but he did not feel good about leaving Draco alone. "You sure you want to do that?"

Draco nodded. "There is a guest room and a bathroom on the ground floor. The bathroom is not accessible, though..." He looked worried.

Harry blushed. "No, I'm fine with that, I guess. I meant... are you sure about going back home? What about... your father?"

Draco's features darkened, he fiddled with the empty cardboard container. "He went on a business trip as soon as he was sure she was relatively okay. She says she does not mind but I know it is not true." Draco slammed the cardboard box down and heads around them turned. The cafeteria was flushed with people, they had barely found a place and the cafeteria personnel continued shooting them angry glances even after they had ordered something to drink. "So... he will be gone for at least a few weeks. Besides… I am done with crouching before him."

"Okay… so… cool, yeah. I can work at your parent's house and you can take care of you mother. Sounds like a plan!" Harry grinned at Draco.

Draco smiled. "Cool… um, by the way… can you swim?" He blinked at Harry a bit apologetically.

Harry stuffed the rest of his sandwich in his mouth and crumbled up the greasy paper. "Yes, I can. Not like… vary far, probably, and also not particularly fast. The sea might be a bit too much of a challenge, in fact. But a pool… that would be absolutely wonderful actually. Don't tell me your parents have one?"

Draco chuckled. "I think it might be hard to find a house without a pool in their neighborhood."

Harry smiled. "Great!" Maybe they would get a bit of vacation after all.


	14. Chapter 14

Author's note: Guys! I'm so sorry for updating sooo terribly late. It's unforgivable. Thanks for your support, love you!

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Not much later the two exited a taxi in the still hot and thick afternoon air, and stepped out onto a broad street lined with white walls and large gates, the lawns behind extensive but yellowish and wilting in the heat, the sea washing ashore in the close distance. They had left behind the city a few minutes ago.

Propped up on his crutches, Harry watched Draco assemble the wheelchair while the taxi driver unloaded the rest of their luggage. Draco's movements were sure and nimble, as if it was already second nature for him to attach the wheels to the cage. When everything was ready, Draco tipped the taxi driver and led the way up a broad stone path through an open metal gate and finally to the whitewashed facade of a large mansion. Harry bit on his lips to prevent letting out a comment because he could feel Draco tense up next to him, his grip on Harry's trunk and the wheelchair white-knuckled.

There were two flat steps up to the huge door flanked by stone pillars and Draco waited for Harry to get up behind him before he knocked on a brass knocker shaped as a snake.

"Uh... I forgot to tell you about Dobby," Draco said, turning to him.

"Who or what is Dobby?" Harry asked, leaning heavily on his crutches to relieve his unsteady legs and eyeing his wheelchair longingly. He needed a cool place and to sit down badly.

In that moment the door opened and Harry first wondered if it was automatic before he heard a strangled high-pitched scream and looked down to see a tiny, old and wrinkled man in a black suit and tie, who had his white gloved hands clasped over his mouth and tears springing from his watery blue eyes as he stared at Draco in front of him.

"Young Master Malfoy!" The tiny man squealed, rushing forward and embracing Draco's knees.

Draco blushed a little and stood stiff while the man cried tears of joy into his trousers. "Shut that Master part, Dobby, please. You know my name is Draco." But a smile stole on Draco's lips as he said that.

A muffled exclamation was audible from below.

Harry met Draco's gaze and Draco shrugged. "Dobby? There is someone I would like you to meet."

This made the tiny man release Draco's legs and squint up at both of them. Harry saw that the most prominent feature in the man's face were his huge bat-like ears that flapped now curiously.

Draco made a step back and indicated to Harry. "Dobby, this is Harry Potter."

The manservant bowed down a little and extended a hand. "Welcome to the Malfoy Mansion, Master Potter." When Harry did not grip his hand at once he straightened again and noticed Harry's crutches from which Harry had tried to free a hand. His face filled with horror and he clasped his white-clad hands together in despair. "I am so sorry, Master Potter! That was terribly rude of Dobby." He bowed even deeper, his nose close to touching the ground.

Somehow Harry found laughter bubbling inside of him at the sight of the man. He seemed genuinely concerned he had insulted him. "It's alright, Dobby." He had finally managed to shift his weight to the left and free one arm which he extended for greeting. "And please call me Harry."

The manservant shook his hand, his eyes huge, and then beckoned them inside, insisting Draco left the luggage outside of which Draco of course had none. So the tiny man followed them with empty hands, constantly chatting happily.

"What a surprise, young Master Malfoy-"

"Draco."

"-Master Draco, to see him again. Dobby does not know when he last bestowed us with his presence here, I think he must have been this small-"

"I've grown out a long time before that, Dobby…"

"Dobby still remembers when Master was little, Master Draco, barely taller than Dobby. He was such a sweet child-"

"I was horrible."

"Well, he gave his mother a hard time, that's true... but such a nice boy."

Draco snorted, turned to Harry who trailed behind and rolled his eyes. Harry forced a grin against the tingling in his legs but Draco was not to be fooled easily. "Dobby, is the guest room down here ready?"

"Of course, Master. So is his old room on the first floor, Master Draco, Dobby dusts it every day. Without touching any of the Master's belongings of course."

Draco chuckled. "Of course."

The tips of Dobby's ears flushed red. "Dobby would propose that the young Master Harry resides in the guest room upstairs, it is much larger and has a beautiful view-"

"Dobby, I don't think Harry wants to have that guestroom."

Dobby took a double take at Harry's crutches and bowed deeply before flashing Harry a guilty look. "Of course, Dobby is so sorry. Dobby gets old."

"You will never get old, Dobby," Draco joked but Harry saw him giving the manservant a quick, worried once-over. The man looked indeed old, but he kept himself straight as an arrow; Harry noticed how his hand did not shake the slightest as he beckoned Harry further.

"This way, Master Harry."

Even the smaller guestroom turned out to be larger than Harry's bedroom, with a huge bed with four black bedposts and a green and silver velvet curtain around, a dark wooden cupboard lining one wall and a matching chest of drawers on the other side. The large windows lead out to a small private terrace and the garden beyond and in the distance Harry could see a blue stripe of sea.

Dobby had followed Harry's gaze. "If Master wants to have a bath in the sea or go swimming in the pool, there are enough blankets in the bathroom." The man froze in the middle of the room, realizing his mistake. "But if Master Harry prefers a bath in the tub, Dobby is more than happy to assist."

Harry sputtered and tried to turn it into a cough. "Uh... I think I am fine without help, Dobby. But thank you." He heard a snicker behind him and Draco emerged.

"Be careful! If he already wants to give you a bath he might not let you leave in the end," he muttered, his eyes sparkling. Harry nudged him in front of his shins with one crutch and went after Dobby to inspect the bathroom. No shower bench and no handrails, of course, but a lot of marble and gold. All in all, enough space to navigate with a wheelchair, so he should be fine.

"Is it okay?" Draco's voice was low.

"Perfect." Harry made sure he sounded convincing and leaned against the huge bed. The mattress was much too high to transfer onto from a wheelchair's position. Well, he just had to make sure to stay on his feet during his time at the mansion. "Can we crank up the air-conditioning?"

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Draco went back to the hospital in the afternoon and Harry went to bed early. He woke without a feeling for time, suspecting it was already late in the morning of the next day considering the light that shone through the gaps in the heavy curtains. He pushed up on his elbows and hands until his back rested against the headboard softened with green velvet. The air in the room was cool and fresh, and he allowed himself some time to take stock. A whole day could be determined roughly by how he felt in the morning.

He had not finished testing how far his knees would bend when he was startled by a knock on the door. Dobby's bald head appeared as the door opened a crack and his round blue eyes lit up when he perceived Harry sitting in the bed. "Dobby brings tea for Master Harry," he peaked up in his tiny voice.

Harry blushed and pulled the light blanket higher. "Uh... that's nice, Dobby. Thank you."

The manservant wiggled his ears happily as he entered and placed a tray with a steaming cup on the small table next to Harry's bedside.

"If Master needs anything else, he may simply call for Dobby. Master Draco is already out of the house to visit the Lady Malfoy."

Harry took the cup from the tray and stirred the golden liquid inside. "Any news from Mrs. Malfoy?"

The manservant hang his head. "Nothing new from yesterday. Dobby is very much in worry."

Harry looked up from the tea cup. "She is going to get better, Dobby. It just takes time."

Dobby nodded thankfully upon Harry's words and turned to leave. "Whenever Master Harry is ready there is breakfast in the dining room."

After Harry had sipped his tea, he sat up, let his legs dangle from the mattress and felt for the floor with his toes. The height of the bed had the advantage that he barely needed to push up to stand. His left leg trembled slightly when he put weight on it but that vanished when he waited a few seconds. All in all it seemed a good day, one that he could think of walking without support insides. He did not intend to do that today in the Malfoy Manor, though, since he barely knew the layout of the rooms least the furniture. Instead, he wobbled the few steps to his wheelchair, holding on to the mattress on his side, and let himself down in the familiar seat. The chair would prove valuable in the bathroom where he needed his hands free.

The bathroom was large enough to accommodate three wheelchairs at once and after using the toilet and stripping from his clothes Harry maneuvered close to the bathtub, towel and shampoo on his lap. The tub looked like an ancient one with a golden rim and was mounted on four coiled golden serpents but when he leaned closer he saw the digital panel on the wall, easily reachable from a standing position inside the tub or leaning over its edge from standing on the floor in front of it. There was a tab on the head side of the tub, assumedly if someone wanted to take a bath and a huge shower head, coming off from the ceiling. The wall was clear of any tubes or anything else to hold on to instead, white and sleek marble except for the black shining rectangle of the panel.

Harry sighed, squeezed his things into the edge between his thigh and the wheels and locked the brakes of the chair. He transferred to sit on the edge of the tub and lifted one leg after the other inside, holding on to the chair's side for balance. Thankfully the tub itself was rather deep, he assumed he could have floated in it when filled, and he managed to push up from the rim to stand in front of the panel, swaying slightly with one hand on the wall and the other scrolling through the programs. He found one shower program that satisfied his needs, long enough and warm enough to give some comfort but nowhere close to a temperature that could prove too hot. He resisted the urge to take a full bath, anxious to overstimulate his body.

Because he anticipated he could not stand that long and also because it was much more relaxing, he gripped the edge of the tub and glided down the wall to sit inside it after starting the shower program. He had managed to draw the white shower curtain close enough to hope he would not flush the entire bathroom. Then he leaned back, let the water drizzle over his body, imagining it was rain on a fresh summer's morning, and nearly forgot to shampoo before the program ran out.

After he had repeated most of the process from before in reversed order, pulled himself up on the tub's edge, careful not to slip on the wet surface, sitting on the edge while moving his legs over it and transferring to his wheelchair where he had laid out his towel, he dressed in fresh and light clothes, shorts and a plain shirt, and decided to give shaving a try since his hands seemed steady enough. When he crutched out of his room, following the smell of fresh bread and tea to the dining room, he felt as relaxed and comfortable as ever.

Dobby appeared at his side as Harry crossed a big room with a large table that looked like a dining room but apparently was not because the tiny men lead him to an adjoining room with an even larger table that was sagging from the weight of food on it. Harry thanked the manservant with a nod when Dobby pulled out a chair for him at the head of the table.

"Would Master Harry like some more tea?"

"Yes, Dobby, please."

As he ate, hunger suddenly ravenous, Harry felt like in a strange movie of past times with the view from his position at the huge wooden table going to the rose bushes, distant fruit trees and meticulously tended lawn outside. He took in the room he was in, the ancient looking tapestries, listened to the birds singing and distant clanking from where Dobby worked in the kitchen next door, and chuckled with the thought. Dobby peaked inside at the sound but Harry only shook his head, smiling at the old man. When he was finished and felt stuffed, he stood up using the edge of the heavy table and threaded his hands through the cuffs of the forearm crutches.

"Dobby would be much honored to show Master around the house."

Harry startled at the sound of the manservant's voice coming from below directly next to him; he had not heard him approach while looking at the garden outside, longing to be able to go there. Dobby looked up at him sheepishly.

"Uh... okay, good idea."

So Dobby showed Harry around the vast ground floor of Malfoy's manor, including two smaller guest rooms in addition to his own, two restrooms, three servant's rooms, deserted except for the tiny one where Dobby lived, two dining rooms, a room for smoking, a room with a grand piano and the kitchen. Dobby especially dwelled on the paintings in the broad hallway and showed Harry Master Malfoy's predecessors, all male Malfoys descending far, far back. Harry stopped in front of the picture the farthest left, showing what had to be Draco's father, white blond hair falling over his shoulders, face as pale as Draco's, nose as pinched and handsomeness disguised by the obnoxious look in his face. Harry recognized him from the hospital immediately although he had barely had a glance.

Dobby stopped next to the large staircase winding upwards. "Master and Mistress Malfoy have their private chambers on the first level, as does Master Draco," he said, wringing his hands in apology.

Harry contemplated the stone stairs leading to the next level, more paintings and colorful tapestries lining the wall, and examined the sturdy handrail. He could make it upstairs with some effort, but he felt he should wait for Draco. It seemed like intruding otherwise.

Harry spent the rest of the day sitting at the large desk in his room, working, only interrupted by Dobby who kept refilling his glass of water as regularly as if he stood behind the door and counted how often Harry picked it up. Harry feared that was not even as far from the truth as he thought. Draco did not arrive until after Harry had taken a solitary dinner in the dining room and went to bed.


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